The Joiner Marriage Index

 I attended a Zoom genealogy class where the presenter introduced us to a website where one can research the Joiner marriage index, which focuses on records before 1837. The current online searchable marriage records are 3,154,329 from 5,581 parishes in 38 counties in England and Wales. 

The search cost begins at Ł2.29 for a single marriage record up to a max of Ł52.19 for 500 marriage records. The site notes the information provided is an index of the marriage records from parish registers and no marriage certificates. 

If you are new to genealogy, you may wonder why you want to use an index when you cannot access the marriage certificate. Indexes may provide you directions on where to obtain the marriage certificates.

If you have hit a brick wall in your research, you may want to check out this site to possibly have a breakthrough. You may access the site by clicking The Joiner Marriage Index. 

Ancestors Lost and Found?

Remember when you lost your wallet, cell phone or something else of value? You were most likely feeling a sense of sadness and doom. You were probably thinking about who was going to use your credit cards, steal your identity or run up your cell phone bill to an astronomical amount.

Now remember the elation you felt when you found the valuable item; the sense of peace and calm that you felt and the fact you wanted to tell everyone that you found that which you had lost.

Why did I mention the above? I wanted to share a new website that I found titled "Ancestors Lost and Found Website." Who of you have not been totally thrilled when you have finally found your Ancestor that has been off of your radar search for more that a couple of years? It is thrilling to find the illusive ancestor. This site "Ancestors Lost and Found" is a website that provides you with another avenue to research that illusive ancestor. People on this site are willing to share their treasures of Family Bibles, pictures and other information with those that utilize this site. The directory to the site includes the following titles: 1) Lost Treasures, 2) Treasures to Share, 3) Treasures to Share, 4) The Mystery Gallery, and 5) Family Bibles, lost and found.

The site is easily navigated utilizing the links on the main page. A search engine for this website is also provided making the searching of this site for a particular ancestor surname a cinch. If you would like to browse this site, please click here.

Looking for a Bride?

As a companion website to the World GEDCOM Index previously mentioned today, the World Bride Index site is another possible way to break through your brick wall and find that illusive female ancestor. In comparison to the World GEDCOM Index site, the World Bride Index site is organized alphabetically to be search by the surname of the Bride.

The data that is available to be viewed is either in the standard GEDCOM format or the line item form of GEDCOM. If you would like to view this site, please click here.

World GEDCOM Index

When I stumbled onto this website this morning, I was excited that you might be able to find a way to break down some of those hard brick walls that everyone hits during the quest for ancestors. This website is designed by geographical locations which means you search for your family according to their location first starting with the country and drilling down to the town/city.

The website states that you can download the GEDCOMs if you find a connection. When I tried to download a possible connection, I clicked on the download button and was redirected to a page that has the GEDCOM in a line by line format. I found this format difficult to understand but you can pick out information from the files, but you have to manually enter the data into your file if you find a match. You are allowed to print up this information if you desire but you could end up printing hundreds of pages. The author of the website explains how to work with and read this type of GEDCOM file and you can view authors instructions by clicking here. I was able to download an actual GEDCOM files of some family names, but it is hit or miss on which surnames will allow you to download the actual file.

Overall, I probably would not utilize this site routinely due to the difficulty in being able to read the printed out GEDCOMs. Having said that, if you are up against a brick wall and you have exhausted all of your other resources, this site may provide a hint or information to break through the wall. If you are interested in viewing the possible connections on this site click here.

Missing Irish Ancestors? Have you tried the Want Ads?

Missing Irish Ancestors? Have you tried the Want Ads? Your ancestors may have tried to located their missing family members by the use of want ads in the local newspapers. The Boston Pilot Newspaper printed a "Missing Person" column for family members that had lost contact with their lost friends and relatives that had immigrated from Ireland to the United States. The Boston Pilot ran column ran the column 90 years from October 1831 to October 1921. This project is sponsored by Boston College’s Irish Studies Program and produced by the Office of Marketing Communications. The ad collection of over 37,000 ads is a searchable database that provides valuable information for the missing person. The ads were extremely successful resulting in the distribution of the paper throughout the United States and overseas in Ireland and Australia.

The column frequently includes the origination county and parish in Ireland, their occupation, the possible destination port, the person that placed the ad and up to 50 different items of interest, including work history and ships name to name just a few. This database is one that you will want to check out if you have Irish ancestry. Click here to go to this website.