Family history website www.findmypast.co.uk is making available online for the very first time fully searchable indexes and images of the parish registers of Wales. The project is taking place with the permission of the Church in Wales and Welsh Archive Services and findmypast.co.uk is working with FamilySearch International, the world’s largest repository of genealogical records, to digitise the records.

Around 893,000 images containing 8,000,000 baptisms, marriages and burials from across Wales will be filmed by FamilySearch and transcribed by findmypast.co.uk.  Some of the records date back to the sixteenth century, making it possible to find Welsh ancestors as far back as the 1500s. The records contain entries in English and Latin.

The records will be made available over the next two years at findmypast.co.uk with an index search available on FamilySearch.org. Free access to the images on findmypast.co.uk will be made available through all Archive Services in Wales.

Source: Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, October 29, 2010