Welcome!

Please Note that this item has not been updated for a while – any questions ask Teresa Lewis – Admin

As a new or as an established OPC, we hope you will participate in the project as much as your time allows.  Your input will be invaluable and will help to ensure the continued success of the Wiltshire OPC Project.

If you are an established or new OPC could we ask you to amend your user name to your actual name rather than an alias for example (John Doe).  We are asking you to do this is for the contact an OPC list – If a user is looking to contact you from the home page rather than the parish page link then it may be a little confusing.  To see what I mean please go to contact us on the home page and select OPC’s from the drop down menu.  If you wish to retain your alias please let Teresa Lewis know and she will change the link on your parish page in some way.

The aim of the project is to research and transcribe records so that they are freely available to family researchers worldwide.  Probably the most important resource to those setting out on the journey of discovering their family history is the Parish Registers.  So these are always a good place to start.

Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre are the custodians of by far the vast majority of historical parish registers for the county, but the registers actually belong to the Church of origin. You should, before you display any parish registers on your page, obtain permission from the incumbent of the parish you have adopted. In most cases a letter of your intention is sufficient.  See under “Guides” below if you are unsure how to approach this.  

It is very rare that permission will not be granted.  Should you get no response from the Incumbent, you may display the registers on your parish page but they will have to be removed if the incumbent objects.

The next thing is to consider what other resources are available to collect and transcribe. Parish records are probably your first priority. Census records are useful too, however, there is  FreeCen project already in existence, so they are probably not an immediate priority.  There are all sorts of other records available which will be useful to family history researchers, school log books and registers, Electoral Rolls, apprenticeship records, parish rate books to name a few – for more ideas, take a look at what other OPCs are displaying on their pages.  The remit of the OPC schemes nationwide is to record as much information relating to a county no matter whether it is available elsewhere.

The next stage is to obtain the records you have decided to transcribe.  Many, if not most, can be obtained from WSHC.  If you are unable to go to the History Centre yourself, take a look at their website.  Many records can be ordered by post although a charge would be made for this and no OPC is expected to purchase records unless they wish to do so.  Alternatively, ask our Administrator which OPCs regularly visit the History Centre – some will be happy to obtain records for you and post them on or they can photograph records to email to you. We have a few transcribers on board now and some can access the WSHC and other archives.

Once you have obtained your records, there is a set format  in which they should be submitted to our Administrator  for uploading to your page.  Parish registers and census must be transcribed into spreadsheets using templates.  You can download templates from the Useful Documents section on the Front Page.  When we have our searchable database in place on the website, the search engine will extract information from the column headings on the templates so it is vital that you use these templates and that column headings are not changed in any way.  More templates have been included in the welcome pack and OPC information section.  Many items are covered not just the BMD’s and census.

Any Items can be typed into a Word Document or spreadsheet, then sent to our Administrator who will convert them to pdf before placing on your page.  If you are at all unsure of how best to transcribe a document, please do not hesitate to ask before you begin or you may find you have wasted a lot of time!

Many templates are being created and can be found in the downloadable document sections.  All OPC’s are asked to use these.  This helps keep the site uniform in its application.

Parish pages have been split into Categories:-  Main Photo Gallery; Contiguous Parishes; Websites of parish interest; Parish Church; Parish History; Buildings and Land; Crime and Punishment; Directories; Education; Emigration; Employment; Miscellaneous Documents; Non Conformity and Other Places of Worship; People and Parish Notables; Poor Law, Charity and The Workhouse; Probate; War, Conflict and Military; Civil Registration; Registers held at WSHC; Transcriptions.  All OPC’s are encouraged to use this format to keep a little continuity to the site.  It is also possible to create tabs for larger items of interest within a parish page.  Instructions on how to achieve this can be sought from Teresa Lewis (Administrator) until a guidance note is created.  This is an ideal resource if you feel you page is getting too long to browse through or if you have a number of tithings within your parish that you would like to separate.

If you live in or near your parish, take photographs of the village to display on your page – have a look at what other OPCs have put in their photo galleries to give you some ideas.   If you do not live in or near your parish, you might like to put an appeal on your page asking if anyone can do this for you, or ask our Administrator if another OPC is willing to take some photographs for you when they are next in that area. As a new OPC, the article “What Is A Parish” may be of interest but do remember to keep an eye on what other OPCs are doing on their pages.  You may get some inspiration but please feel free to add whatever you feel is of historical value.  The OPC Motto is – If something is or not of interest to you – then it will be of interest to someone else.

One thing though should you be offered donations from our users then these must be utilised in some way and an acknowledgement to the donor set in the document.  One important thing to remember is that “You are the guardian of the parish page and not the owner”.

Newsletters

Since the passing of Christine Brooks this item is on hold until the foreseeable future when we can get someone to take on the task.

Photography Service

If anyone would like specific images taken for their parish pages please contact Teresa Lewis (Administrator) who can put you in touch with a very kind gentleman who has offered to take photographs for us.  A big thank you to Neil MacDougall for offering his services.  (Neil has published several church photographs for Wiltshire on Google Earth and has very kindly given the site permission to use any of his images from those published).  A full list of images Neil holds at present can be found in the downloadable document section below.  Neil will gladly send you these images to use in your galleries.

Resources

We have compiled an album of images which you may use as header images in your documents.  Wiltshire Stock Photographs

Online Resources (free)

  • Directories such as Kelly’s    (The Administrator holds many copies of these directories within the OPC library)
  • Wiltshire Wills Indexes
  • Wiltshire Community History – has many different subjects that can be included on your pages from parish notables to maps and images
  • Many articles related to Wiltshire parishes can be found in both local and national newspapers.  London Gazette (free) and the Newspaper Archives UK can now be found on line (fee payable).  British Newspaper Library can now be accessed with a Find My Past subscription.
  • Other family history sites have various items that can be transcribed and utilised on your parish pages – the census returns are available from 1841 – 1911 for example – provided these are transcribed from the records onto our templates then there is no problem.
  • It is amazing what you can find just by googling the name of a parish – just be aware of copyright but a lot of the stuff out there can be used quite freely or with permission from the copyright holder.
  • Your local library may be able to get inter library loan books for you to use for items of interest

Tips

  • Keep an eye out for books, postcards and photographs at jumble sales, car boot sales and even junk and charity shops – I live in Scotland and picked up a book of Wiltshire Inns in Glasgow a little while ago it cost me about 30p.  Ebay of course is an amazing source of items if you wish to collect things about your parish unfortunately we do not have funds to buy these for you.  However a few of us purchase items when we can and a list of these holdings can be found below and is regularly updated when new items are added.
  • Ask members of the family if they have any old photographs they would allow you to scan.  When submitting these to John or Teresa for upload make sure they are no larger that 640 x 480 pixels if you don’t know how to resize your photographs not to worry send them anyway but warn us that they have not been sized

Tools

There are many templates available for you to use for transcriptions.  These are laid out in such a way that the information will be easily collated for the searchable database which is planned for development it is essential therefore that the columns are used as set out.  If unsure please contact the administrator Teresa Lewis.  To access the templates please follow this link.  Here you will find different categories with templates covering most items you would transcribe.  If there is not a template here that suits the transcription please contact Teresa Lewis  who will create one (please supply a sample of information you wish to transcribe)

No Microfiche Reader?

We have found that a USB microscope with a magnification of at least 200 X is an ideal solution.  A bit of ingenuity and manoeuvring may be required but from about £30 a USB microscope gives a decent image to transcribe from.

Your local library or history/local studies centre may have a fiche reader you can use.  Usually you need to book these in advance by contacting the library or centre direct.

Remember Our Motto

What may or may not interest you may be of interest to someone else