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01 Mar 2012Nearly 4 million new Welsh records on findmypast.co.uk
We have just published almost 4 million Welsh parish registers on findmypast.co.uk
This is the first time that the complete Welsh parish baptism, marriage and death records have been published online and is fantastic news for anyone with Welsh ancestors.
The records cover Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Glamorganshire. Further details are as follows:
- Baptisms: 1,418,921 records covering 1538-1911
- Marriages: 950,254 records covering 1539-1926
- Banns: 340,002 records covering 1701-1926
- Burials: 1,169,685 records covering 1539-2007
See detailed information about the coverage of these records (PDF)
Coming soon are records for the following counties: Anglesey, Brecknockshire, Caernarvonshire, Merionethshire, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Pembrokeshire and Radnorshire.
We are proud to be working with the National Library of Wales and the Welsh County Archivists Group to bring you these records.
Search the Welsh parish records now

Another outstanding collection added to Find my past and on Saint David’s Day as well. Your indexes and images are first class however I have one major bug bear, you don’t publish a list or index of the parishes covered by the index, so if I’m looking for a particular parish entry, I do not know if your index covers it, as I see it this is the only bit that lets you down compared with Ancestry.
It is also essential that the coverage dates of parishes are included.
For example the Parish of Cenarth Carmarthenshire has details only from the early 1800s although the Registers themsleves date from the early to mid 1700s
Hi Colin and Stephen,
Thanks for your feedback – we’re working on the list of parishes and will publish them in the next few days. We’ll let you know once they’re ready!
Thanks,
Jess (findmypast.co.uk editor)
It’s great to see this collection coming online, but unless I’m missing something, there is no way to search baptisms using parents’ names, nor to search for both spouses in a marriage? This kind of search is particularly needed for Welsh research as there are so many people with the same names, so you could spend hours trawling through a list of matches for the one that you want.
Particularly ironic given your MarriageFinder facility on the BMD index search.
Thank you very much for bringing so many Welsh parish records to us. Will it be possible for us to browse the records at some stage, rather than just viewing pages via a search?
I also look forward to an index of parishes and dates covered please.
In the meantime I’m very grateful for these parish registers being online and with such clear images.
Another source of useful data well done FMP, can you provide an estimate when the remainder of the Welsh counties – esp Merionethshire – will be available ?
I am delighted to see these records becoming available, however I have had some issues with identifying which parish some of the records belong to. There appear to be large numbers of records which have been indexed as Bagillt which are in fact Holywell records. I have also found one record which I know to belong to Holywell which has been indexed as Nannerch. At the moment there appears to be no facility to browse the volumes so the title pages can’t be inspected, and therefore at the moment I cannot be confident in the indexing. It is vital that subscribers are able to identify the original source. I am hoping that this can be addressed as soon as possible please.
I am so pleased to see the Welsh Parish records on your site. I have already found where my ancestors lived before they died. Only trouble is I need to see an old map to see where they lived. Also the marriages records are an excellent source to find out the maiden names of my relatives.
Thank you findmypast.
It is now three weeks since the welcome release of some Welsh parish register records.
At the time I and a number of other posters made what I thought were some constructive comments concerning coverage & presentation of these records.
As a result Jess, the FMP Editor indicated that the list of parishes would be published “in the next few days” but of course this has not happened, nor has there been any response to the very sensible suggestion made by Kate Rimmer to include the additional information in the search box to overcome the number of Jones Thomas Davies etc results that feature every time a search is made.
To anyone who has any experience researching Welsh family history this should be a given & one wonders what knowledge FMP has in this field.
I have a number of other observations to make concerning the presentation of these records (as no doubt do others)but there seem little point when there is no resposne from FMP.
Whilst the continuing rollout of records is to be welcomed in my opinion FMP are in danger of taking their eye of the ball when it comes following up on paying users comments.
Couldn’t agree more with Stephen’s view & that of Kate Rimmer, the records seem to have been rushed out with great fanfare then forgotten. Same thing happened with the Cheshire collection, we were promised Wills, when I got in touch with FMP, they said they might not have the wills online ever! the blurb still says they will?
FMP are good, to a point but, if you say “in the next few days” it should mean that, or don’t say it. Similarly you should be able to give a timescale as to when the rest of the Welsh records will be available, and keep to it!
Further to my earlier posting & as a result of an email & two phone calls to the “Help Desk” I have received the following response.
“Further to your phone call I have contacted Jess regarding your query and she has advised that she has a list of parishes and will be updating the blog this afternoon.
My colleague Michael had sent an email to her yesterday however she was on annual leave therefore this had been why she had not responded sooner I’m afraid.”
Whilst this is welcome news we have yet to have any response to the other issues concerning the presentation of the records.
Hi Stephen,
I’m pleased to tell you that I’ve just added information on the coverage of the records to this blog post.
Many thanks,
Jess (findmypast.co.uk editor)
Is there any particular time frame to look to for the release of further parish records, I’m very interested in the Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, and Merionethshire “coming soon” announcement.
Hi Lisa,
I’m afraid we can’t reveal details of any impending record releases…rest assured we’ll let you know as soon as we can!
Many thanks,
Jess (findmypast.co.uk editor)
Jess,
Thanks for posting these details.
I am sure it will be of great help to researchers.
Hi,
We are still waiting for the other counties to be added to the Welsh Parish Registers. It’s very disappointing after the reference to “in the next few days” originally.
It seems like every update to the site since has been for records that miss the areas of the UK which interest me!
Is there any way of knowing when the rest of the Welsh records will be available, please?
Hello Phil,
Apologies for the delay in publishing the records – as usual, we can’t give you any exact timeframes for when the rest of the Welsh records will be published, but I can tell you that our data team are working hard on them as we speak!
We’ll let you know more as soon as we can.
Thanks for your patience,
Jess (findmypast.co.uk editor)
The insistence on a surname may well be a major stumbling block when searching as the patronymic system was widespread in Wales up to the end of the nineteenth century (and later in some places). Many surnames were not fixed until 1800 or later.
I have found a baptism on FamilySearch.org
Charles V Non K Gale
Event: Baptism
Event Date: 1881
Event Place: Aberdare St. John, Glamorgan, Wales
Street Address: Cwmdare
Age:
Occupation: Traveller
Father: Charles Samuel
Mother: Adelaide Maria
It does not appear in your index, how do I find it ?
The rest of the family is there in your index.
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