The name index is free and open to everyone. Type a surname and it will tell you whether we hold anything for that family, which parish it came from, and roughly when.
What the index covers
Every record the society has transcribed is in the index, across all four of our collections. That is a little over 130,000 entries from 84 parishes in Somerset and east Devon.
| Collection | Period | Entries |
|---|---|---|
| Parish registers | 1598 to 1901 | 61,400 |
| Census transcriptions | 1841 to 1911 | 38,200 |
| Civil registration index | 1837 to 1950 | 22,900 |
| Monumental inscriptions | various | 7,900 |
Free and member results
A free search returns the surname, the parish, the record type and the year. That is usually enough to tell you whether a family is worth pursuing here or whether you are looking in the wrong county.
Members see the full transcribed entry: given names, ages, occupations, the names of parents or spouses where the original records them, and the volume and page reference so you can order the original image.
Nothing found?
It usually means the parish is outside our coverage rather than that the family did not exist. Check the parish coverage list before concluding anything, and remember that spelling was not standardised. Try the name as it sounds.
Getting more out of a search
- Search on the surname alone first. Given names were recorded inconsistently and abbreviated constantly.
- Try obvious variants. Hodges and Hodge, Thorne and Thorn, Vaughan and Vaughn are all the same families in our area.
- Widen the date range. Ages in census returns are frequently wrong by several years, sometimes deliberately.
- If you find one entry, search the parish rather than the name. Families stayed put far more than people expect.
Still stuck
Members can ask a volunteer to check the physical archive, which holds material that has not been transcribed yet. If you are new to all this, the beginners’ guides are the better starting point.