Durham Records Online additions

New offerings at Durham Records Online (www.durhamrecordsonline.com):

Tanfield's "lost register” 1577-1719
Researchers are often disappointed to learn that the earliest parish register of Tanfield St. Margaret, up to 1719, has been lost or destroyed. Fortunately, some extracts of the first register were recorded in a manuscript compiled by Sir Cuthbert Sharp (1781-1849), a distinguished antiquarian and friend of Robert Surtees, with whom he collaborated on that mammoth work on Durham's history, "The History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham". Prominent Durham families and their pedigrees were included in that book, which may explain why Sharp collected noteworthy extracts from a number of selected parish registers. This small book, titled "Manuscript Library of Sir C. Sharp", is one of a collection known as Sharp MS22, held in Durham Cathedral's Library. On page 54 of the manuscript, under the heading of Tanfield, appears this statement: "The early register in a most lamentable condition has been drowned”.

One of our team recently transcribed the 271 extracts from Sharp's manuscript, consisting of 146 baptisms, 31 marriages and 94 burials between the years 1577 and 1719. The second register, which we have had online for years, begins in 1720.

Tynemouth baptisms 1833-1849
9,737 baptisms at Christ Church, Tynemouth, Northumberland, covering 1833-1849.

Bishopwearmouth Cemetery burials 1940-1947
8,898 burials from the beginning of 1940 to 24 March 1947 at Bishopwearmouth Cemetery in Bishopwearmouth, district of Sunderland.

Coming Soon:
Egglescliffe baptisms, marriages, burials 1539-1751
Hamsterley Baptist Chapel baptisms 1768-1837 and 1859-1869, marriages 1840-1908, burials 1785-1965
Hartlepool St. Hilda baptisms 1839-1859
Sunderland Cemetery 1918-1924

Further down the road: more Sunderland Cemetery, Mere Knolls Cemetery 1905-1909, Rothbury, Sherburn Hospital, Ovingham, Newcastle St. John, Ferryhill, Newcastle All Sts baptisms 1800-1804, Slaley, Hartlepool St. Hilda baptisms 1860-1863, early Durham St. Margaret, early Witton-le-Wear

(With thanks to Durham Records Online)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.