Customer Reviews
The Phillimore Atlas - By: White Ferret, 05 Apr 2010 
Over the years, & the centuries, there have been many changes to County boundaries, of latter years more as a result of political & electoral considerations. However, such variations do not help usin determining the historical County where a particular parish or parish church existed at the time that our ancestors were baptised, married or died. When viewing modern day maps of the United Kingdom, we can easily become confused when we find that historical counties, & some parishes, have disappeared, or been amalgamated, renamed or partially absorbed by their neighbours.
Most us like to record our ancestral records as beingin the Parish & County as they were at the time of the event - after all some churches were destroyedin the War & can no longer be found on modern maps. This is where The Phillimore Altas & Index of Parish Records comes into its own, providing pre-1832 Parish maps, & 1834 topographical maps of each county. The accompanying County index lists the Parishesin each County together with the dates & depositories of the Registers or Indexes for each Parish. Additional information & resources are listed at the end of each County section.
Tip: Have a decent magnifying glass to hand when viewing the map pages - some of the print is very small.
Overall, this is an excellent must-have genealogical reference work, currently available at a remarkable value from Amazon. The Phillimore Atlas & Index of Parish Registers (None)
A very useful reference book - By: Wise Old Owl, 13 Jan 2010 
If you are a family history researcher this book will be invaluable. I was given it as a Christmas present, after dropping several heavy hints, & have already made good use of it.
What you getin the Atlas is a map for each countyin England (and Wales & Scotland) showing the pre 1832 parishes, the earliest dates when parish registers were recordedin each parish, with eclesiastical jurisdictions & "peculiars" all colour coded. There is also a topographical map for each county, though I find I need a magnifying glass to make good use of these.
The Indexin the second part of the book lists the parishes for each county & then gives the registration district for each parish. This is invaluable information when looking for an ancestor's birth, marriage or deathin the post 1837 GRO registration indexes, & you can use the map references to see at a glance where each parish & registration district is.
So that is briefly what this book is all about, & if you are still reading this review you are probably a serious researcher & it will be very useful to you. Definitely not bedtime reading, but one to put on the shelf & consult again & again as a reference book.
I should add that this is the third edition of the Philimore Atlas, dated 2003, & a lot of the census informationin the Index is no longer as valid, as all the censuses are now available on the internet, although for a price of course!
Great Resource for locating parish information - By: A. Elmer, 02 Oct 2009 Once you know what County your town/village isin from the maps, the county index will then tell you where to look for the original registers (A,B,C etc explained at the end of each county index). The index will also let you know if there are IGI records available for your town, Census years available 1841,51+. Additional resourced information is also mentioned for each county. This book will save you a lot of time & give a lot of guidance. Well worth the investment.
Family History - By: April Devon, 09 Mar 2009 A superb resource for the family historian trying to locate those obscure hamlets our ancestors came from. Colour maps & county by county index. Excellent.
Terrific resource for all serious genealogists! - By: Giselle F., 21 Feb 2009 ...and those who need to strike out a little further afieldin their family history research.
This is just a terrific resource, a real must have. Don't be put off by the price: it is most definitely worth it if you are looking at various parishes before 1837.
I particularly like the maps of parishesin the front of the book: they show the date the parish (church) was founded (extremely useful!), give a terrific idea of the parishes around (so if the parish was founded after the period you are looking for then just look for the next nearest older parish, chances are those registers represented the area later split off into the new parish). There are also boundaries (in colour) of what court juridictions applied to wills. But the list of where you can find what registers are available is what makes the book. Very useful indeed!
I am so pleased to own it now, I was forever leaving through it at libraries, wishing I could have copies of the maps (you can't copy them, there's copyright on them).
