York church court records go online

[Coromandel]

If you have ancestors from the diocese of York, or if you just want to learn more about the type of information that can be found in church court records, the recently launched Cause Papers Database may be of interest. It's described as 'a searchable catalogue of more than 14,000 cause papers relating to cases heard between 1300 and 1858 in the Church Courts of the diocese of York. The original records are held in the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, and are the most extensive records of their type in the United Kingdom'. See

http://www.
hrionline.ac.uk/causepapers/index.jsp

There's more here about how the courts worked here:

http://www.
york.ac.uk/library/borthwick/projects-exhibitions/church-court-records/cause-papers/

The users' guide at hrionline.ac.uk/causepapers/userguide.jsp (put www. in front) has helpful search tips as well as outlining the way cases have been classified. The main categories include:

• defamation (covering allegations regarding 'parentage', 'witchcraft' and others)
• immorality (e.g. adultery)
• matrimonial (e.g. bigamy)
• testamentary (e.g. disputed legacy)
• violation of church rights (e.g. 'failure to baptise children', 'brawling in church' and 'excessive bell ringing')

On 1 December 2011 it was announced that 'Images from the digitisation of the York Cause Paper project are now online. The images cover Cause papers from the CP.G, CP.H., CP.I, and DC.CP series' and are freely accessible and downloadable through the Cause Paper database site.' I haven't yet figured out how to access these, if they are available. (There have been some glitches with the system, apparently.) However, the database can still be searched or browsed. Registered users can add abstracts of documents.

[Pam Downes]

I think it's a case of some of the images are online.
I entered a surname, and from the results I clicked on links.
The first few I clicked on just said'create an abstract/order copies/understanding record', but others I've clicked on have 'view an image of cause paper' in that list.

Be warned - you need to be good at reading 'old style' writing and/or Latin.

Pam

[Coromandel]

I think it's a case of some of the images are online.
I entered a surname, and from the results I clicked on links.
The first few I clicked on just said'create an abstract/order copies/understanding record', but others I've clicked on have 'view an image of cause paper' in that list.

Thanks, Pam, yes, I can see some now too! I must have just been unlucky in the ones I chose earlier.