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This is a great addition, however there are a number of parishes missing and many of your records start in 1813, when the actual registers which survive for those parishes have records which are earlier. Do you have any plans to publish further parishes and earlier records ?

I notice there are several anglesey parishes not on your latest release when will the complete release be avaiable ie llandysilio pentreath penmynydd llangoed llanddona Colin Jones

Llanstadwell parish, Pembrokeshire seems to be missing. Will this be published in the near future ?

Quite a lot of registers are not included and as mentioned above some only go back to 1813. Others are filed under the wrong county and/or parish, while some registers have gaps when original registers exist.

Some are missing because the church has not given permission for them to be included. I saw a list of some of these somewhere in relation to the first release earlier this year.

Could someone at FindMyPast please let us know:

a) Are you going to rectify problems with incorrectly labelled registers, such as Llanbrynmair, Mont. being listed under Dolgellau, Meri?
b) Are you going to fill in gaps where registers exist, such as c. 1750-1812 for Mochdre?
c) Are you going to transcribe registers before 1813?
d) Are you going to add registers for any more parishes?
e) Are you going to remove your labelling of these records as “complete Welsh parish baptism, marriage and death records” when so much is missing?

When you announced this project, you said there would be 8 million records. As there are currently 6 million, does this mean the project is only 75% complete?

Hi David,

Thanks for your comments. Our data team is in the process of reviewing the Welsh records as we speak. As you point out, there are a number of issues that need attention – please be assured that we’re working hard to fix them as soon as we can.

We’ll post an update as soon as we have one.

Thanks for your patience,

Jess (findmypast.co.uk digital content manager)

I am very concerned about these omissions. I have just been speaking to Pembrokeshire Record Office about the registers of Carew, which on findmypast stop at 1778. Pembrokeshire Record Office assure me that the registers from 1779 onwards DO exist.

I can find nothing at all on findmypast on the parish of Castlemartin in Pembrokeshire and very few marriage register books have been copied. A staff member at Pembroke suggested that this may have been because the findmypast team stopped filming when they came to a blank page, and only copies the banns part of the register, when the actual marriage register entries were in another part of the book!

I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg.

This is very disappointing. Surely if findmypast employed a competent professional genealogist (such as myself!) to oversee this project then this sort of disaster could have been avoided!!

I just wanted to clarify what I mean when I say that there are very few marriage registers online.

The period 1754-1812 has very poor coverage on findmypast for Pembrokeshire. The following are missing – note this is just the ones I have come across while searching a particular area. it is by no means a complete list!

Bosherston
Carew
Castlemartin
Haverfordwest St Mary
Lawrenny
Martletwy
Minwear

In some of the above cases the banns part of the register has been copied, but not the part including the actual marriages, which for anyone who knows anything about genealogy also includes persons married by licence.

It is very clear from examining the baptismal entries in for example Martletwy that there should be a number of marriages for which findmypast currently has no record.

During this period (1754-1812) it was a legal requirement for ALL except Jews (nonexistent in this part of Wales at this date) and Quakers (another tiny minority) to be married in the establised church and for those marriages to be recorded in printed registers designed for the purpose – nonconformity should have no effect on this whatsoever.

Where are these registers? Have they been copied, but just not put online? Are the links faulty? Is it the case (as I fear) that poorly trained staFf did not film the registers properly as Pembrokeshire Record Office have suggested?

Hi John,

Thanks for your comments. As I mentioned above, our team is in the process of reviewing and re-checking the Welsh records, so for the moment, I’m not in a position to answer your queries. As soon as the review has been completed, I’ll let you know.

Thanks for your patience while we look into these issues.

Jess (findmypast.co.uk digital content manager)

Can we please have an update on the expected timescale of correcting the very numerous errors assigning parishes to records in the Welsh Parish register collection?

Hi Nicola,

Our data team has been busy cleaning up the existing records and are in the process of loading the missing data. As soon as I know a firm date that this will be completed, I’ll let you know.

Thanks for bearing with us.

Jess (findmypast.co.uk digital content manager)

Could we please have an easily accessible list of which parishes and years will be placed on the website eventually and how many have already been loaded? Please quote coverage as percentages as well as numbers, as 8 million sounds a lot, but I suspect that it is only a fraction of ALL Welsh parish records.
Details of coverage of ALL collections should be easily accessible. It was somewhat better before you changed the website, but now it is very frustrating. I would prefer you to be honest with subscribers about what you have or have not got. I want to know before I wade through thousands of results for John Williams that any from Llangefni will be there, or conversely know not to bother searching because you don’t yet have Llangefni records. When you do have records, it would be very helpful to see a note such as ‘Llangefni – records for parish church and 2 non-conformist chapels, but not for Roman Catholic church and 3 other non-conformist chapels.” I don’t appreciate being tricked into thinking that FindMyPast would have a large proportion of Welsh parish records if that is not the case, as I advised several people with Welsh ancestry to take out subs.