Does anybody have access to the original parish records for Newland? I'm trying to trace my Pitcher ancestry and I suspect that the parents of my 6 x great-grandfather, James Pitcher, might be Arthur & Ann from Newland.

James was born in about 1690/91 and died in Lydney in 1746/47. I see there are some children belonging to Arthur & Ann Pitcher around the 1680's/1690's in Newland but by James' entry, the surname is Pitchard, not Pitcher.

I discovered this using the Soundex facility and I was wondering if this could possibly be a transcription error.

Does anyone have any ideas please?

After a quick look using the Advanced Search facility I see most if not all the transcribed PRs are similar to the following,

Record ID 322342
Entry Number
Year 1691
Month Sep
Day 15
Parents Surname PITCHARD
Child Forenames James
Fathers Forenames Arthur
Mothers Forenames Ann
Mothers Surname
Residence Scatterford
Occupation
Officiating Minister
Event Baptism
Memoranda
Notes Compiled from Latin PRs and BTs
Register Reference P227 IN 1/2
Page Number 76
Parish Chapel Newland

By similar I mean same Residences, same LATIN notes etc.
Given the great age I think it very reasonable to assume this is a transcription error as you say, particularly if from Latin ?, although of course it may equally and perhaps more probably have been a spelling error/misunderstanding by the Officiating Minister at the time. It's unfortunate no minister's name is recorded to compare the various PRs against each other - if say the same minister against the Pitchers PRs but a different, perhaps locum minister against Pitchard, then it makes more sense.

Re the age of this particular Register, I'm sure I recall seeing photos on this website of the Register but cannot find them today. However reading this thread may help you to understand the problems associated with this ancient register.

http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=7337

Have now found the aforementioned photo, it's within the Miscellaneous Documents section of the Documents & Articles part of this website. As I've said to other newcomers to the site, this fantastic resource (thanks yet again !!) contains SO much more than "just" the huge PRs database; certainly I recommend anyone to look thro the Docs & Articles section in great detail theres so much to be found !!

http://www.forest-of-dean.net/downloads/Miscellaneous/Newland_Register_Page_1560.pdf

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply, Jeff. I hadn't noticed the register was originally in Latin so this might be one explanation as you say.

It's always handy to see the actual original documents but as I live in Plymouth, I'm not going to get to the GRO any time soon.

Useful information about the registers too!

Cheers.

Annie

Hi again Annie,
having given it some more thought, presumably the names will be written the same whatever language they're written in ?. Looking at the photo of the actual page you can clearly read names such as Elizabeth and Rosanna. This makes me more convinced it's a simple case of human error by the Minister recording James' Baptism. We see similar errors wrt mispelt names of both people & places in C19th PRs nevermind C17th ones where the literacy standards were even lower.
That said, maybe when the site owner sees this thread they can help out. Personally I don't know where the original Register is kept, or any copies/photos of it.

Looking at this Newland Parish Transcription Record leads me to think it was probably accurately transcribed as most of the Register was done by the same people Gould/Webb, although the dates in question were done over the Festive week so maybe they were too full of Christmas "spirit" ?. Just kidding of course !

http://www.forest-of-dean.net/cgi-bin/transcripts/transcripts_2.cgi

ie I assume the original Register actually was written as "Pitchard" in James' case.

If you look at the main Parish Records homepage there is a specific system you can follow to query the Transcription, perhaps this will result in someone re-looking at the relevant pages of the Register for you. If you do this then I suggest you ask them to compare James' record with that of his probable siblings, this might show a change of handwriting etc which could indicate a different Minister recorded James' Baptism.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/?Contact_Us

Good luck, and please keep me uptodate with the conclusion if the PRs are reviewed. Thanks.

Thanks once again. I've submitted a transcription check and will let you know the outcome.

Variations in the Spelling of a Surname
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=21797#p21797

Following up on my issue, I have now seen photos of some of the original Pitcher/Pitchard entries for Newland. Thank you to Graham for helping me here.

The transcriptions appear to be accurate and I'd like to congratulate the transcriber. I can see it would have been a tremendously difficult task given the condition of the registers and it doesn't help that the rats have eaten their way into some of them.

My deductions are:

• There apppears to be a variety of handwriting in the registers which could quite easily account for the name variations
  
• Looking at other Pitcher/Pitchard families in Newland on the website, I notice that they too, follow a similar pattern of either being Pitcher or Pitchard. It chops and changes a bit around 1691 and 1693 but this is consistent with the different handwriting as far as I can tell.
  
• It would probably have been quite easy for the original scribe to mistake/mis-hear Pitchard for Pitcher. Rather than sounding the 'a' as an 'a', perhaps it was spoken in such a way that it was more likely to sound like Pitcherd. It would have been easy to think there was a 'd' on the end too.

Hi Annie we must be related somewhere along the line. Our ancestors were very "posh" sadly my father William Arthur Pitcher died before he knew what I had found.I still have an auntie and cousins in the forest. The change in name was just a natural progression and was always subject to the way it was written by the priests.You are so lucky to have this site which is just amazing. I did most of my research by visiting all the record offices years ago. They came down through Herefordshire to top part of the Forest.You can see pics of Newland Church and of Scatterford on the English Heritage website "Images of England".
Paula

Hello Paula,

It's always nice to catch up with other relatives. If you have an online tree or GEDCOM file that I could view, that would be helpful. My family tree website is available at http://www.hibbitt.org.uk

Hope to hear from you again.

Annie