CONGRESS OF ARCHAOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
Report of the Parish Register 
Committee, 1896. 
The Committee in issuing the present supplement to their Report 
and Lists of 1892 have great pleasure in calling attention to the large 
increase in the number of Transcripts made; many of these, there is 
reason to believe, owe their existence to the help and stimulus given 
by the former report. 
It is to be noted that a large number of the Transcripts have been 
made for the use of the various Parishes, and will therefore be 
accessible to the public. 
It appears to the Committee that the evidence supplied by this 
supplemental List shows that the supposed impossibility of ever 
transcribing the whole of the Parish Registers of the Kingdom is 
imaginary, and that by enlisting and encouraging local effort, the very 
desirable object may be obtained at no great distance of time. 
The list of Transcribers’ names shows how much may be done by 
individual workers, and much more might easily be done by some 
i organised effort by Diocesan authorities. 
The Committee hail with satisfaction the successful formation of a 
Society for printing Parish Registers, under the patronage of the Arch- 
bishops and many of the Bishops. The Hon. Sec. is E. A. Fry, Esq., of 
172, Edmund Street, Birmingham, who will be happy to give any 
information on the subject. The Society has already issued five 
Registers in return for the annual guinea subscription, and in the event 
of an increase in the number of subscribers will be able to print more 
Registers annually. In cases where some local help can be guaranteed, 
special arrangements can be made for printing Registers. 
Mr. W. P. W. Phillimore (124, Chancery Lane) is also printing a 
series of complete Marriage Registers of Counties. ‘Those of Gloucester- 
shire are now being printed, and others for Hants, Kent, Northants, 
Notts, and Somerset are in active preparation. It is intended to 
arrange for other Counties. 
Mr. Wm. Brigg, B.A. (Harpenden, Herts.), is printing in the 
“ Herts. Genealogist” a useful series of Bishops’ Transcripts for the 
periods for which the Parish Registers are lost. 
It is gratifying to find that, at the instance of the Diocesan Confer- 
ences of St. Alban’s and Worcester, Committees have been formed to 
obtain from all Incumbents in the Dioceses returns of the Registers 
existing iu their Parishes, their exact dates and condition. 
An effort will then be made to get the books put into proper repair. 
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