Hi All Hopefully I will be allowed to post this.

As many of you are aware Mike Johns Monmouthshire site has been removed from the Rootsweb site, he is trying to make contact with them but seems they gave him the wrong address, it just gets worse.

We collectively as a group are trying to trace as many records as we can.Many people are working very hard to do all they can, I have spent many hours over the last few days collating this information into a spreadsheet with contact details etc for the moderators to be able to piece together all lost documents. Would any of you have any thing of relevance with regard to Monmouthshire records even if its just Indexed lists or copies at all???

I would be truly grateful for anything you have, please contact me off list so as not to bog down the list with endless emails, debambury@aol.com

Many Thanks Debs

All I have is 5 pages - Monmouthshire Parish Record Transcripts (listing the Parishes transcribed)

Marriages & Burials for all Parishes listed from Abergavenny to Wonastow

Mike John's website has been reinstated:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~monfamilies/monfh.htm

I have bookmarked the Mike Johns transcriptions and can still access them. the address is
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~monfamilies/monprts.htm

regards, royrowles@yahoo.co.uk

Hi All

Many Thanks firstly to the group Admin for allow me to post this thread, it is very much appreciated and been extremly helpful.

Thanks to all the replies I received on and off the list, again they have been extremly helpful.

As of late Thursday Mikes site is up and running again so is available for searches. A group of us are now working towards transfering the site to a new Website and undertaking a massive transcribing project, as you may guess there are many thousands of records to go through, so bare with us.

We will be including links to other sites, including the Forest of Dean project to allow our members to improve their search, we all know how much our Ancestors used to travel about, and it would be great way of passing on our knowledge and introducing people to such wonderful projects.

Thanks again to one and all

Debbie Ambury

I have been watching the difficulties experienced by Mike John's site with interest and not a little alarm. So glad its back up and running as its been a friend almost every day for four or five years.

I gather the problem related to a person complaining that a living relative was listed on the site so that's something we all have to be aware of but really Ancestry gives birth registrations up to 2005 and the majority of those people are alive I'm sure.

The reorganisation is a massive undertaking but may provide an opportunity to get everything in one place an iron out or reactivate the dead links on the site.

Finally, so correct about people moving about, the existence of Mike's Monmouthshire site and this one is the only reason I've been able to do a quarter of my family tree. One other quarter originated in Scotland, plenty of data on the Scotlandspeople website (but its expensive) the other two quarters I lack access to sites like this and have not made much progress.

Ralph

Hi Ralph

As you are aware Mike has emailed them along those lines, will be interesting to see their response!

I HALF jokingly said if every genealogist requested that Ancestry took down their birth pages, and with others, their marriage pages then there would be a fair few gaps in their records!!

Regards Debs

So sorry for the delay in replying forgot I saved your message, have had so many.

If you could send me that I would most grateful, it all helps.

debambury@aol.com

Many Thanks Debs

My Great Grans baptism is listed on here and she is 94, but its nothing I could not of got from Glos Archives.

Pete

I've had a similar experience of trying to find Scottish ancestors, the cost of going onto Scotlandspeople is something which I think they need to consider as people ought to have access to their heritage without having to pay out.

As a true believer that Parish records are OURS and not sold to a big Organisation, a site like this, The Forest of Dean, is well just priceless and well worth the effort of anyone taking time out to transcribe the Parish records and other documents and Donate. This site was a true find in my own research as my family was lost, even though someone PAID a genealogist to research my line they were left blank, using these records, I made the connection.

I must say being part of the team sorting out Monmouthshire I made another break through last night and found another relative who has been missing, lucky it was A he was top of list I looked at!!!

We are currently making progess into creating a new Monmouthshire site, bare with us, it has been very time consuming so far, but we will get there, there are strong connections/crossovers with FOD & Mon parishes so together we will hopefully sort.

Have you tried opening a yahoo account and searching for groups in your Scotish area, thats how I found the Monmouth one, and since loads of Somerset ones?

Debs