Stowe help needed. Also - my family. (General)

by May , Wednesday, December 20, 2006, 22:00 (6549 days ago) @ TBonz

You could go to www.old-maps.co.uk
Type Stowe in the place name field and press the search button.
Select Stowe, Gloucestershire from those listed.

The reference is 356500 / 206500 if I remember correctly.
If you pan east you will see just how close it is to Clearwell. Stowe is only about three miles SSW of Coleford "as the crow flies"

It is not always possible to find old civil record transcriptions simply because they may just be work in progress or, as a (pre forest of dean transcription project) transcriber for freebmd working on the old handwritten records, I know that some of the pages have just faded away and are impossible to read. If you have ancestry.com they have the best Civil Register images I have seen and you could use the beta search to view the old civil registers online this way but its a long shot. If you do this you will need to look for entries recorded at Monmouth for West Dean and Westbury on Severn for East Dean

The centre of the Forest of Dean was extra-parochial in those days, and it became split into West Dean and East Dean for administration purposes. That means the main Churches were around the perimiter. The smaller newer Churches were sometimes referred to as Chapelry's of the main Church until they were large enough to go solo and the records were included with the main church's. There were many Chapels in the forest - Baptist, Wesleyan, Congregational etc., and we also have to remember that Baptist's do not baptise infants.

As to where to find the Parish records I can only say be patient - the transcribing team for this site are working on it.
Hope this helps you.