SFHG Library Catalogues

All but recent acquisitions are listed in catalogues available at the Library itself.

There are online listings of items relating to the places in Section 1, and the categories and items in section 2.

The material includes:

• Section 1. Sussex Places
  • Parish Registers
  • Non-Conformist Registers
  • Burial Records
  • Monumental Inscription Transcripts
  • An outline of census material held (see below)
  • Church guides, local history publications, directories
• Section 2. (East and West) Sussex Material and General Information
  • Marriage Licences
  • Wills
  • Census
  • Directories etc.
  • and all items not included in other sections
• Section 3
  • Out of county and overseas material (includes a number of Pigot's Directories, mainly for the period 1820-1850)
• Section 4
  • Family Histories and Pedigrees
  • Personal histories

Notes on Section 1 - Sussex Places

This section lists the holdings for each place. At present place names are listed alphabetically with the name as it is written - EAST GRINSTEAD not GRINSTEAD EAST, but over time this will be changed to match record office usage.

The letter under "County" denotes either "E" for East Sussex or "W" for West Sussex. NOTE: these refer to the present (post 1974 boundaries). This is included to indicate the Record Office where records are likely to be held.

Parish Registers

• Many West Sussex Parish Registers & other items on Fiche; the catalogue shows an outline of dates covered.

  A major acquisition in 2003 means that we have most PRs for West Sussex up to about 1900 - and many waiting to be added to the catalogue!

• Transcripts of many Sussex Parish Registers and Bishops' Transcripts. ("i" after closing date denotes indexed.)
• Photocopies of some later East Sussex Baptism Registers.
• Photocopies of PR Baptism Register indexed slips for some East Sussex parishes.
• Transcriptions of Baptisms from East Sussex Parish Registers & Bishop's Transcripts by members of the Group, stored in 2 files. (CT)

Non-Conformist Registers

Collections of Non Conformist transcripts

• Non Parochial Registers of Sussex, by Bax, 6 photo copied volumes of handwritten transcripts, notes, extracts and lists of members of various places of worship.
• Sussex Non Conformist Registers, by Michael BURCHALL, 3 typed volumes of transcripts from various places of worship.
• Brighton Believers Christian Volume transcripts of Non Conformist Registers, some giving details of addresses & mother's maiden name etc.
• SHELLEY Quaker Transcripts, Society of Friends, Quaker. Sussex & Surrey records at Euston, by Jean SHELLEY,1974, covering Charlwood, Crawley, Horley, Leigh, Newdigate, Rusper and Worth. (Shelley Quaker ts) Sussex Quaker Records. Pedigrees of some Quaker families and transcripts of Quaker registers.
• Index of Lewes Baptismal & Birth Registers 1800-1900 by J.ETHERINGTON Includes notes on Lewes churches & places of worship.

Other material includes:

• Burial Records Photocopies of Burial Records of some Sussex cemeteries.
• Monumental Inscription Transcripts for Sussex churchyards & cemeteries, work of the Group M.I. project.
• Additional Sussex Place Information Directories, church guides, local history publications, under places.

The Sussex census holdings generally correspond to the listings on the publications pages. If a census item is found using the search on the main publications page, it will probably also be found in the library.

The library holds:

• Pre 1841 published by P.B.N. for some East Sussex places.
• 1841 published on fiche by P.B.N. for some East Sussex places.
• 1841 -1891 Census for some West Sussex places published by SFHG on fiche and some printed indexes.
• 1851 Census return on 35mm microfilm - for most East Sussex places
• Census Index. East Sussex 1851 booklets published by June Barnes covering most of East Sussex. The remainder published by Family Roots on fiche.
• Printed or fiche indexes for some of West Sussex published by SFHG.
• 1861 Census returns on 16mm microfilm for pre 1974 East Sussex
• 1871 Census returns on 35 mm microfilm for most of East Sussex
• 1881 Fiche for the East & West Sussex published by CLS, also fiche covering the whole of England, Wales & The Channel Islands. Also as above on CD, including Scotland, can be searched on the Computer at the Family History Centre.
• 1891 CDs for various places as listed
• 1901 Census returns on Fiche for the whole of Sussex. A guide to this census by Eric & Rosemary Appleton is available at the Library.

You can check on which pages a word, or words appear using the search below. Then use Edit/Find on the page itself