Priaulx Library to digitise island’s genealogical records to be digitised

GUERNSEY’S genealogical records are to be digitised to make them more accessible to researchers in the Bailiwick and around the world.

Picture by Sophie Rabey. 01/09/22. Access to the Bailiwick's historical records is about to undergo a big transformation with the digitisation of all parish registers and other genealogical records by one of two online companies. A steering group is being formed between The Priaulx Library, Guernsey's churches, the Island Archives, La Societe and the Greffe to make sure all the relevant information is gathered. Interview with The Very Rev'd Tim Barker and Chief Executive of the Priaulx Library Steve Foote, looking through a recently closed Baptism register of St Andrew's Church that is now being stored at The Priaulx Library. It has nearly 2,500 entries, with the first dating back to 1865.. (31217436)

A steering group is being set up to oversee the process, consisting of representatives of the Priaulx Library, La Societe, the Greffe, the Island Archives and the churches, though it is expected that the scanning work itself will be conducted by an established online genealogy company.

Priaulx Library chief executive Steve Foote explained that the impetus for the project was the anticipated obsolescence of the microfilm technology currently being used for a lot of family history research.

‘Church registers and Greffe records are critical to this research and they’re accessed here via microfilm, but it’s getting tatty and old,’ he said.

‘The readers keep breaking and are becoming harder to fix or replace and if the microfilm itself breaks, we can’t get replacements. The Mormons, who produced the originals, have stopped making copies.’

The aim is to create a digital image of every page of every historical birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial register in the Bailiwick – of which there are more than 100 – as well as recording all the data in a searchable format. Data protection considerations are likely to limit this to records from a certain number of years ago.

UK guidelines stipulate a limit of 100 years in the case of births and 25 in the case of deaths.

‘Guernsey has always been a bit of a black hole when it comes to digitised information,’ Mr Foote said.

‘Jersey has already made its records available via Ancestry.com, while Devon’s information can be found on Findmypast and Guernsey is the exception.’

Mr Foote said the possibility of conducting the digitisation independently had been looked at but had been ruled out.

‘Ancestry or Findmypast will be able to do the scanning for us and the resulting work will be freely accessible to anyone who comes to the library. They won’t need a subscription or even a library membership,’ he said.

The library would, however, derive an income from a share of the fees charged to online users who pay to access certain records.

The two companies are due to visit the island separately next week and so Mr Foote is busily establishing the whereabouts of all the relevant registers, many of which are kept in safes in churches and rectories, as well as in the strong rooms of libraries, the Island Archives and the Greffe.

Both companies have expressed an interest in digitising additional local records and consideration is being given to the Occupation-era identification forms which are housed at the Island Archives.

These are popular records for viewing and are therefore handled frequently, so digitisation would aid their continued preservation.

The Priaulx Library has not had to set aside a budget for the project, as no fees will be due to the company doing the scanning, however Mr Foote said he expected more staff time would be needed over the next few months. It is hoped the project could be completed within two years.

St Andrew’s baptism register moved to Priaulx Library page 6