Olympic torch route - Day 5 Bristol

Bristol Cathedral

Bristol, a cathedral city of England, a municipal and a parliamentary borough, situated partly in Gloucestershire, partly in Somersetshire, but forming a county in itself. It stands at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Frome, which unite within the city, whence the combined stream (the Avon) pursues a course of nearly 7 miles to the Bristol Channel. The Avon is a navigable river, and the tides rise in it to a great height. The town is built partly on low grounds, partly on eminences, and has some fine suburban districts, such as Clifton, where the celebrated suspension bridge across the Avon, 703 feet long and 345 feet above high-water mark, unites the two counties. The public buildings are numerous and handsome and the number of place of worship very great. The most notable are the cathedral, founded in 1142, exhibiting various styles of architecture, and recently restored and enlarged.; St Mary Redcliff, said to have been founded in 1293, and perhaps the finest parish church in the kingdom. Among modern buildings are the exchange, the guild-hall, the council-house, the post-office, the new grammar school, the fine arts academy, the West of England and other banks, insurance offices &c. The charities are exceedingly numerous, the most important being Ashley Down orphanage, for the orphans of Protestant parents...Bristol has a number of endowed schools, the principal of which are the grammar-school, Queen Elizabeth's hospital, the Red Maids' school...Colston's hospital, the trade school and the cathedral school. Amongst the educational establishments are the University College, the Theological College of the Baptists and Independents, Clifton College, and the Philosophical Institute. There is a school of art, and also a public library. Bristol has glass-works, potteries, soap-works, tanneries, sugar-refineries, and chemical works, ship-building and machinery yards. Coal is worked extensively within within the limits of the borough. The export and import trade is large and varied.   

From Blackie's Modern Cyclopedia of Universal Information (undated, probably c1890)

Bristol contains 22 parishes, some of them of ancient foundation, which together comprise the registration district of Bristol. This is a geographically small area, so some of your 'Bristol' ancestors may belong to the neighbouring districts of Bedminster or Clifton. Bristol has its own archive, the Bristol Record Office

There is more information about Bristol on Vision of Britain, and historic photographs on the English Heritage Archives site. Bristol Town Duties - A collection of original and interesting documents (etc) 1828 can be found at British History Online

 

Olympic torch route - Day 4 Taunton

Taunton Old Grammar School

Taunton A municipal and parliamentary borough (one member) of Somerset, is upon the Tone, in the valley called Taunton Deane, 45 S.W. of Bristol. A fortress was erected here in 710, and a castle was built upon its site by a Bishop of Winchester in the 12th century. In times past Taunton was one of the West of England "clothing" towns, and still has some manufactures of shirts, collars, gloves, and silk, and is the centre of an important agricultural district. The church of St Mary Magdalen, built in 1500 and restored 1858-62, is renowned for its noble Perpendicular tower, 153 feet high. Other important buildings are the Elizabethan shire hall, the municipal buildings, the King's College, the Independent College, other schools and the barracks. The town is of much historic interest. In 1497 Perkin Warbeck was in it; in 1644 Blake; Monmouth made a triumphal entry, and in 1685 Judge Jeffreys held here the noted "Bloody Assizes".

From Cassell's Encyclopedia; a Storehouse of General Information (undated, but apparently early 1900s)

Taunton has two ancient parishes, St Mary Magdalen (1558) and St James (1573) in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Parish registers are held at Somerset Archives and Local Studies. Taunton was a registration district until 1974, and a Poor Law Union

There is more information about Taunton on Vision of Britain, and historic photographs on the English Heritage Archives site. Google Books has a History of Taunton by James Savage, published 1822.

 

Parish registers online

FamilySearch is the biggest and best-known site for parish register indexes, but it isn't the only one.

A number of English counties have Online Parish Clerks, volunteer transcribers who 'adopt' parishes and  put the results online, free of charge.

They are all works in progress, but worth a look if your county of interest is listed here.

Cornwall
Dorset
Essex
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
Somerset
Sussex
Warwickshire
Wiltshire

The Online Parish Clerks have are separate sites for each county, but another site worth searching is FREEREG, which includes transcriptions from many counties in England, Wales and Scotland.

Many printed parish register transcripts can be downloaded from The Internet Archive including publications by Phillimore and Co, and some parish register societies.

Better yet are free digitised images of parish registers, and you will find these for some parishes in Kent and Essex. They are not indexed, although you may find indexes elsewhere, such as on FamilySearch or Online Parish Clerks. History House - dip into the history of Essex links to digitised images of some parish registers in the Essex Record Office. Registers from the area round the Medway Towns in Kent are on the Medway Archives CityArk site. This is not the most user-friendly site I have ever used, to say the least, but given the choice, I'll take inconvenient but content-rich over pretty but empty every time! For anyone not familiar with the term 'Medway Towns', it is the area round Rochester and Chatham; Chatham includes not only Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard, but is also a garrison town, so it is interesting for anyone with ancestors in the Army, Navy and Royal Marines, who may have been stationed there at some time. The Mid-Kent Marriage Index 1754-1911 is a useful resource for another part of the county.