Parish Database files

Parish Database files

The database is currently maintained in and Ingres database which you can search via the WWW, and in a DbaseIII database with associated indexes and search programs. The data is also available as a comma separated text file which can be used as input to any database system. If you do this you will need to write your own search software if you want to extract all the entires within a specified distance. If you do this you may want to make such a program available, and you can do this by letting us have a copy.

Download copies

The initial Dbase version (650k) of the database and search software can be downloaded now. This file currently also contains a CSV text copy(257k) of the database. Pre-configured versions for other database systems will be provided as users make them available.

Gerry now has a free Windows program and database with twice as many entries as that in the original version. This is available from his Parish Locator site.

Database structure

The database structure has been enhanced from that originally suppplied by Gerry Lawson, but the originals are still available. New data will not be provided that is compatible with those original databases. In order to maintain compatibility, the records in each system contain a common reference number.

Field	Field Name	Type	Width
1	PLACE	Character	32
2	DEDICATION	Character	32
3	STREET	Character	20
4	TYPE	Character	20
5	ID	Numeric	5
6	COUNTRY	Character	3
7	COUNTY	Character	3
8	GRIDREF	Character	8
9	EASTING	Numeric	4
10	NORTHING	Numeric	5
11	FOUNDED	Numeric	4
12	CLOSED	Numeric	4

NAME - is the place where the church etc. is located. Place names may change over the years, so to make easy for most users put the commonest name here.
DEDICATION - the name its known by. This is likely to be tha name of a saint e.g. St.John. Otherwise the name its commonly known by e.g. Register Office, Park St. Methodist.
STREET - In cities where there are many churches, it is easier to identify them by street rather than just by grid reference. Initially we are more likely to have the street rather than an exact grid reference.
TYPE - For churches this will be the denomination, e.g. CofE, RC etc. There will be a large number of different ones and an encoding scheme will be used to code this. Larry Snowdon is letting me have a schme he already has, but if a more common one is in general use, then that one may be used. The original coding scheme is:
- P - Parish
- R - Register Office/Registration District
- C - Roman Catholic
- N - Non-conformist
- G - Graveyard/Cemetery
- S - Sub Registration District
For all other denominations (including non-conformist) put the full text of the name in. E.g. if its Methodist indicate which type e.g. Wesleyan etc.
ID - Each record will have a unique numeric code. The initial codes will be those used in the original Jerry Lawson database. The ID will be used to identify the correct record for updates/deletions, and will also be used for related databases/tables containing additional information.
COUNTRY - A 3 character field indicationg the country, ENG, IRL, SCT, WAL etc.
COUNTY - The county expressed using Chapman county codes.
GRIDREF - The Ordnance Survey grid reference, in full.
EASTING - The easting part of the grid reference in tenths of a Km including the part encoded in the first two letters. The origin used for calculating the easting value appears to be 300Km west of the one used by the OS, which is just to the south west of Cornwall. I assume this is so that Ireland will fit into the mapping scheme.
NORTHING - The easting part of the grid reference in tenths of a Km including the part encoded in the first two letters. The northing origin is identical to that used by the OS.
FOUNDED - The year when the church, cemetery etc. was founded. If this isn't currently known then this field will contain the value 1. This is for use in search programs.
CLOSED - The year when the church, cemetery etc. was closed. If it is still in use the field will contain 9999. If we don't known if it still in use then the field will contain 9998.

[Last updated: 23rd August 2002]