FMP Lincolnshire records are a mess

[ElizabethHerts]

I just don't understand how FMP messed up so much with the Lincolnshire records. They should have just put the registers online in the order the pages appear. But no. Every parish I have looked at has issues.

Upton cum Kexby



Parish:Upton Cum Kexby
Event:Baptisms & Burials
Year range:1583-1679

The drop-down menu has:

Baptisms 1584-1586
Baptisms and burials 1583-1679
Baptisms and marriages 1582-1669
Baptisms, burials and marriages 1564-1753
Baptisms, marriages and burials 1597-1705
Burials 1670-1670
Burials and marriages 1584-1669
Burials, baptisms and marriages 1597-1597
Burials, marriages and baptisms 1654-1655
Marriages 1755-1836
Marriages and baptisms 1579-1579
Marriages, baptisms and burials 1566-1748

If you click on on of those you are presented with a series of images, or, in some cases, just one image or a couple of images.
If you have a baptism in 1600, for example, it's not clear which menu you should click on. There appear to be 6 options (if I'm counting correctly!)

Here is an example:

Baptisms and burials 1583-1679
image 1 page 37 of the register. Can't spot a year but in late 1500s
image 2 1592 burials 1593 baptisms
image 4 1596 burials 1597 baptisms
image 5 1663 baptisms 1664 christenings (NOTE THE JUMP FROM 1597 to 1663)
image 6 1678 burials 1679 christenings
no image no. 7!!
image 8 1763 baptisms and burials (another big jump)
image 9 1766 burials 1767 baptisms
image 10 1768 baptisms and burials 1769 baptisms
image 11 1769 burials 1770 baptisms and burials

and on it goes!
For each parish there are lots of images - locating the one you want is like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Other parishes have the same issues.

[kiterunner]

Parish registers are sometimes in that kind of mess, though, Elizabeth. Sometimes they seem to have just found a random blank (or partly blank) page and written on it although it ruins the chronological sequence. Well, that's what I have found in some of the Nottinghamshire parishes I have transcribed for FreeREG, anyway.

[ElizabethHerts]

Kate, I know that some PRs are a mess, but even when they aren't, FMP has made it even more difficult to search. They should just leave them as they are if they aren't indexing properly or transcribing them.

Here are the registers for Upton cum Kexby on LincstothePast:

General register
Date: 1563-1800 Collection: Lincolnshire Archives Reference: UPTON CUM KEXBY PAR/1/1

Marriages, with banns
Date: 1755-1812 Collection: Lincolnshire Archives Reference: UPTON CUM KEXBY PAR/1/4

Baptisms and burials
Date: 1801-1812 Collection: Lincolnshire Archives Reference: UPTON CUM KEXBY PAR/1/2

Marriages
Date: 1813-1836 Collection: Lincolnshire Archives Reference: UPTON CUM KEXBY PAR/1/5

Baptisms
Date: 1813-1860 Collection: Lincolnshire Archives Reference: UPTON CUM KEXBY PAR/1/3

FMP should have left the format like this, following the page sequence in the orginal registers.

[ElizabethHerts]

I should have said, spot the glaring error!

The heading is "Baptisms and burials 1583-1679".
However, from iamge 8 we are in the 1760s!

The last image is image 45, which is 1811 and 1812!
What a muddle.

[Glen TK]

I stumped up for a sub to FMP a couple of weeks ago and can't get on with it at all, one of my common Lincs surnames returns 0 matches in census returns, that's just the surname!! Putting in a forename and residence in Lincs throws up lots of results form Middlesex but diddly squit from Lincolnshire.

Also finding the newspaper listings very different to the newspaper archive site too and I have clicked the same report several times in error as a result. I almost wish I hadn't bothered with it.

[kiterunner]

I find the best way to search the newspapers, if you are having trouble on FMP, is to do your search on the British Newspaper Archive first and then when you know which entries you want to view, look for those particular entries on FMP.

[Merry]

For the census problems you could put some separate threads on Research and hopefully we can get your search/results working better!

[Glen TK]

I'll have a bash Merry, got a day or two of work and of course had some grief with the laptop, backup appeared to work until the full recovery went through and then of course if failed, I'm rebuilding things again but amazed how many gaps there are to fill in.