Family History
Investigation of family history, for the area covered by the Association, is centred on the civil and church records which are available at Bath Record Office ( www.batharchives.co.uk/ ) and Somerset Record Office at Taunton ( www.somerset.gov.uk/archives/ ). There is an online catalogue at the Somerset Record Office site that includes some of the holdings at Bath. Bath Record Office offers a research service for those unable to visit it.
The Association is unable to answer specific questions relating to family history.
For help in researching family history, researchers covering Somerset advertise in family history magazines. In addition Bath Record Office offers a research service for the Bath area. |
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Civil Records
For births, marriages and deaths for the period from 1837 to present, BathBMD
( www.bathbmd.org.uk/ ) has the civil records for Bath and its surrounding area in a form that is more comprehensive than the conventional General Register Office (GRO) indexes. It has been produced by volunteers using the locally-held registers and has the following additional information:
for births the mother's maiden name is given from 1837, not just from 1911. Searches can be performed on the combination of surname and mother's maiden name.
marriage records give the spouse's name from 1837, not just from 1912. In addition, it indicates who married whom. With the GRO index this might be inferred from other information or, if this is not possible, the certificate has to be obtained. If the marriage was in a church, BathBMD gives its name. (If it was in a chapel it just states Bath Register Office'.)
for deaths the age is given from 1837, not just from 1866.
Parish Records
Parish Registers for most Anglican parishes are available on microfiches at Bath Record Office, located in the Guildhall. The same microfiches are at Somerset Record Office at Taunton.
The International Genealogical Index (IGI), and its online manifestation at www.familysearch.org , has poor coverage of parish register information for Somerset. The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers (edited by Cecil R Humphery-Smith) gives the location of parish registers and any transcripts and the coverage by the IGI, parish by parish.
Bath Record Office also has indexes for some parish registers. Transcriptions of some registers for Bath parishes can be found in the Local Studies section of Bath Central Library but are mainly for dates prior to 1837.
There are four cemeteries for Widcombe and Lyncombe. The first is by St Thomas à Becket Church. The second is nearby in Church Lane. The third, which opened in 1825, is by St Mark's church which came later in 1832. The fourth, which opened in 1861, is on the Lower Bristol Road. Although commonly referred to St James' Cemetery, it was actually bought by Widcombe & Lyncombe with St James being allowed to bury there. (St James didn't have much space in it graveyard and in the middle of the 19th century had its poor buried in adjacent parishes, much to the distress of the parish council who received only a pittance for this.) For burial registers for Widcombe & Lyncombe, there are:
Survey of Tombstones in the Upper Churchyard by Alistair Durie, 2001. This upper churchyard is the second Widcombe & Lyncombe graveyard in Church Lane.
Transcript of the Registers of St Thomas à Becket, The Parish Church of Lyncombe & Widcombe 1813-1840, E S Jenkins, 1983.
St Mark's Lyncombe, Bath. Burial index and description of surviving memorials produced by Widcombe Association. Available at Bath Record Office, Bath Central Library and the Society of Genealogists, London. This has the burial register entries from 1825 for St Mark's and St Thomas à Becket as well as descriptions of the surviving memorials.
The National Burial Index (Third edition) http://www.ffhs.org.uk/projects/nbi/nbi-v3.php has entries from burial registers for Abbey Cemetery and St Mark's. In addition, the entries for St Mark's cemetery are available free online at Somerset Online Parish Clerks ( http://wsom-opc.org.uk/ ). These sources do not give the locations of the graves.
St Matthews, Widcombe Hill, does not have its own graveyard. Bath Record Office has a copy of the documentation of the memorials inside the church produced by David L Houldridge in 1983.
Documentation of St Thomas à Becket's graveyards and the memorials inside the church is currently being undertaken by the Widcombe Association. For records prior to 1813, the burial registers need to be consulted. For the cemetery on the Lower Bristol Road no index exists. Bath & NE Somerset Council can undertake searches of its un-indexed records provided an approximate date is supplied
( http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/communityandliving/deaths/cemeteries/ ) . It makes a charge per name. To obtain an application form it is necessary to email cemeteries_crematorium@bathnes.
Censuses
Typically the online access to census entries makes use of the usual genealogical information providers. Nonetheless Bath Central Library, in its Local Studies Section, has indexes to some censuses for the local area.
Newpapers
The Georgian Newspaper Project
( http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/BathNES/leisureandculture/recordsarchives/georgian/default.htm ) has indexed local papers for some years in the period 1770-1779 and the database can be searched online. Local newspapers are available on film at Bath Central Library in its Local Studies section but these are unindexed.
Directories and Maps
Bath Library, in its Local Studies section, has a large series of directories on the open shelves. Those prior to about 1840 have to be ordered from the stack. In practice, because Widcombe and Lyncombe were considered for a long time to be outside the city limits, adequate coverage of the area only occurs after about 1880. Maps of the area are available both at Bath Central Library and Bath Record Office.
Local History
Click for publications and articles of relevance to Widcombe & Lyncombe produced by Widcombe Association and the Survey of Old Bath.
And Finally....
Tony Evans, a correspondent from New Zealand who asked for a copy of the Abbey Cemetery CD, sends us the following Maoiri poem, which may explain why so many of us wish to trace our ancestry:
Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi
Engari takimano, no aku tupuna;
Te mana, te wehi, te tapu me te ihi,
I heke mai ki ahau, no aku tupuna.
My greatness comes not from me alone
It derives from a multitude, from my ancestors;
The authority, the awe, and the artistry
I inherited these gifts, from my ancestors.