Berkshire Names Index
For many years, society volunteers have diligently transcribed millions of parish records. We make this data accessible in a variety of ways – on CD, via Findmypast and in Data Downloads (PDF format - available as soon as you have completed your purchase).
The society’s county-wide CDs have been particularly popular. They are fully indexed which makes finding your ancestors as they migrated from village to village relatively easy. It’s amazing how far some of them travelled.
As the next step in making the society's transcriptions more accessible, you can now access the county-wide indexes for baptisms, banns, marriages and burials by clicking on the links below.
So, if you’re looking for an ancestor named Ann Pocock – these will list the occurrences, the year and the parish. Once you have found it in the index, the full entry, usually giving details such as the name of parents, name of spouse, occupation, age, address etc, can be viewed in the relevant county-wide CD.
Alternatively, if PDF Downloads better meet your need, check the availability for the parish and, if published, you’ll find the entry there as well. The majority of parishes in our county-wide CDs are also available in download format, but some are still a work in progress. So please bear with us.
We hope you find these indexes a great tool to help you trace your elusive ancestors and allow you to home in on the products which are most likely to meet your needs.
Please note these are transcriptions. The original registers are held by and can be viewed via Berkshire Record Office or the other archive repositories.
NOTE – Scrolling the page:
When there are too many search results to be visible in the index’s window, scroll INSIDE it to move the list. Scroll OUTSIDE to move the main window.
Number of search results per page
By default the system will retrun results in block of 50. You can set this to a higher number on the search form before you submit the search:
If you forget, press “Go Back To Search Form” on the results page. Your search term will be remembered. You can then select the number you want and repeat the search.
Search tips
- Spellings vary, and we automatically include variants. If you need to be more specific, use the drop down selectors next to the fields to refine your search
- Where original records are illegible we put a * in the transcription. If a search fails, try searching for *
- Use the drop down selector to change the number of results per page
- When viewing the search results, you can return to the search form to refine the parameters or start over by clicking the ‘Go back to search form” button at the top of the search results page
- Press the ‘Reset’ button to clear the entries and reset the default search options
If you find a match, you can view the full transcription by purchasing:
- Berkshire Baptisms, Marriages or Burials CDs – if you’re researching several places, time spans and names, these are the best value
- An individual parish CD
- Data downloads – subsets of the transcriptions, broken down by place and date
All of these are available from our shop
If you have any queries please contact us here
Baptisms Index
Banns Index
Banns transcriptions are found on the Marriages CD and Data Downloads – they have been indexed separately so they are distinguishable from Marriages
