Parish Chest Assignment

1. Look at the parish of Duffield, Derbyshire. What years do the parish chest records cover according to the catalog entry? What unusual surprise record (1579-1889) is included?
2. Look up the parish of Hathersage, Derbyshire in the FHLC. Take a look on the films at the bastardy papers and apprenticeship indentures and summarize the content of one of each below. What value are they to the genealogist?

3. Using McLaughlin's Annals of the Poor, in the section about settlement rules, answer these two questions.

a. How long did a man have to live in a parish before he could re-establish settlement there?

b. What were the normal ways to establish settlement? (5 points)

4. Using the four-part Gibson et. al. guides, answer the following questions. A patron is looking for information about her poor ancestor living in the Madeley area of Shropshire.

a. What is the name of the poor law union?

b. How many parishes are in that PLU?

c. What type of records and dates are in the FHL for this union?

d. What is the film number?

5. What is the relationship between Gibson and Youngs Gazetteer of England and Wales and our reference volumes entitled Guide to the Local Administrative Units in England?

6. Look in the county of your choice and browse the catalog (FHLC) for a few parishes until you find one that has parish chest material other than parish registers. Look at the actual records and describe them and their genealogical value. If you look at four parishes without finding any chest material, record the names of the four parishes you checked here and go to the next problem.

7. Check out that parish on the website www.workhouses.org and in the Jeremy Gibson booklets. What does the web site say about that workhouse? What other records are there that we don’t have in the FHL?