Somerset is a county in the south-west of England. Bordered by the counties of Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west; the county is also partly bounded to the north and west by the coast of the Bristol Channel. The county can be divided into three ecclesiastical jurisdictions, the Archdeaconries of Bath, Wells and Taunton.
The city/county of Bristol lies on the borders of Somerset and Gloucestershire. This is a grey area for many family historians. A person stating that they were born in Bristol may have been registered in Gloucestershire or Somerset. In general, however, the parishes on the south side of the river Avon are in the Somerset registration district and those on the north side are in Gloucestershire. There are of course exceptions to this "rule-of-thumb".
For the sake of uniformity between the OPC project, FreeReg and the Bristol_and_Somerset mail list we will include the parishes of the county of Bristol within the scope of the Somerset OPC Project.
An OPC is a volunteer and should not be confused with the civil Parish Clerk appointed by a Parish Council. An Online Parish Clerk (OPC) researches all the available historical data they can find on a parish, and transcribes records. They may also offer a look up service in response to an email or postal request.
| 19/Jun/2009 | Baptisms 1837-1900 and burials 1837-1900 for Greinton now on-line complements of Charani. |
| 12/Jun/2009 | 1861 Census Returns RG091646 Wincanton now on-line complements of FreeCens. |
| 10/Jun/2009 | 1861 Census Returns RG091624 Bridgwater and RG91634 Ilminster now on-line complements of FreeCens. |
| more... | |
In order to promote further private research, information is made FREELY available to any researcher. This will include census returns, Church register transcripts, bishop's transcripts, churchwardens accounts, overseers accounts, land tax records, postal directory extracts, church and village histories, in fact anything our volunteers can find which other researchers may find interesting. The OPC scheme encourages people to make transcriptions available on this website, but this is not a pre-requisite to being an OPC. Offering a look up service is an alternative approach as is publishing the information on an OPC's own website or elsewhere. It takes time to transcribe and accumulate material, an OPC may not yet have full data for all these sources.
The Somerset OPC project needs the efforts of many people to make it a success. If you are be interested in helping make these vital records available, please click one of the buttons on the left for more information or to volunteer - the more help we get the faster the information will be available to all!
This site will only be as good as the contributions received from you! Please help make the site a success by contributing your transcriptions - records, wills or any other information relevant to our parishes.
