Where did all the people (or records) go? (General)

by Antipodean , Sunday, June 10, 2012, 09:29 (4552 days ago)

It struck me whilst looking for my ancestors, that the number of people baptised does not closely match the number of marriages or burials. Overall, the fantastic FoD site has the following:

• Baptisms: 998,674
  
• Total marriages: 242,588 (24% of Baptisms)
  
• Burials: 329,029 (33% of Baptisms)

My question to the forum is, does this mostly reflect the:

• gaps yet to be filled in transcribing and digitising records?
  
• physical gaps in the records (e.g. lost records or unrecorded events)?
  
• net loss of people out of the Forest since the first records in 1538?

Importantly, what are the implications for researching ones family history?

It seems to me that the most important implication comes if there are large physical gaps that can never be filled. If there is a large proportion of records physically not available, then there is a greater chance of not finding one's ancestors' marriage or burial records than there is of finding them.

If the main explanation is that there are masses of records still to digitise, then we can all help by contributing.

If the main explanation is a net loss of people, then we know to look outside the Forest.

I don't mean to be off-putting to anyone else conducting research, but its important to know where to focus one's attention.

By the way - nearly 1,000,000 Baptism records transcribed and entered into the data-base since the project stared in 2006. Well done to all the organisers and volunteers, that is a mammoth effort.

(The above figures were derived by using the wild card search in the parish records search engine; not the advanced option).