WHAT IS IN THE ARCHIVES?
- Parish records – Baptisms, Marriages, Burials
- Catalogue – details of all the material we hold in the Heritage Centre: photographs, press cuttings, artefacts, documents etc. Wills are included, some have been transcribed or can be transcribed by request.
- Medieval wills – synopses
- Poor – from the Poor Law Records. We only hold transcriptions, not copies of the orginal records. To see the abbreviations used in these records please click on link. For more information see The Poor of Marden
- Censuses – 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 are on line. Plans are afoot to input the 1911 census also.
- Monthly Parish Magazines – editions from January 2003 onwards are held on the church website – click here . Many earlier editions, not accessible online, are available to view in the Heritage Centre.
NB. The view of the records you can access freely is restricted, but for £15 for the first year, and £12 per year afterwards, you can become a Member of the Marden History Group. That will give you full access to all the records in our archive, plus other benefits. Click on the Members link on the Menu for more details.
SEARCHING HINTS AND TIPS
The system is designed for searching by keyword. The fields that are marked (*) are the ones that that are searched upon in a general search. In the case of the parish records, Poor Law records and the wills this is principally by surname. Remember that spellings of names varied in the past when all spelling was phonetic and no standardised spellings existed eg. Doughtie, Doughty, Doughtye, Dowttye, Daughty, Dorykye, Dowghtye. So try all possible combinations.The system will accept parts of words so if you are not sure of all of the spelling choose the part that that you are sure of for example eg. HAYSMER, HAYSMOR, HAYSMORE could all be found with “haysm”.
When you are searching the catalogue you have more scope with keywords but it is best to keep your phrase short. For example, if you wanted a historical picture of the Mace shop on the High Street, then “High Street”, “Crowhurst”, “Tompsett” would all work. “Crowhurst & Tompsett” might not find all the pictures, as some might be catalogued as “Crowhurst and Tompsett”. “Mace” would only find very modern pictures – after the shop became known as Mace. Try searching on only the surname rather than the full name if you are looking for a photograph or other archive material of a person. You might find it helpful to use one of the History Group’s “standard” keywords when searching the catalogue, which will catch at least 99% of items within each topic. They are: Agriculture, Buildings, Carnivals, Commerce, Communication, Education, Farming, Hopping, Impact, Leisure, Maps, Organisations, People, Photos, Pubs, Religion, Roads, Social order, Sport, Transport, War.
HOW TO ORDER FULL TRANSCRIPTIONS OR COPIES OF RECORDS
Make a note of the record you require, in particular noting the Ref no. and email history@mardenhistory.org.uk with the details. Charges for this service are listed on the Research page.
COPYRIGHT AND LIABILITY
All material in the archive is copyright of the Marden History Group. Information is given in good faith and while we have made every effort to ensure accuracy we cannot be held liable for any inaccuracies. Onclick Ltd is not responsible or liable for any of the information contained with the archives.