** Kent, England Online Parish Clerks ** How this Site Works

pie graph showing percentage of material on web site

Three Main Divisions of this Web Site

This web site is divided into three distinct sections:

1. Primary Pages: The primary pages contain web site background information (About Kent OPC), links to our special projects such as newspaper extracts (More Kent Data), links to research tips and offsite resources (Research Info) and links to our Facebook and Twitter pages (Join Us On).

2. Parish pages (Parish Navigator): Each parish is presented with a main parish page that contains maps of the parish, parish statistics, historical information concerning the parish and links to many resources specific to that parish, such as parish register and census transcriptions either on or off of our web site. There are also sub-pages linked to the main parish page that contain photographs, write-ups of manors and large or famous estates within the parish. In a few instances we have Wills of individuals from the parish transcribed on parish sub-pages.

3. The Kent Family Garden (Kent Family Garden): This section forms the third area of our web site. Here we have family trees that have been researched by a donor and submitted to our web site for archival and research purposes. In most instances, a contact address is available for the submitter of our trees, but in other instances, our donor simply wished to make their research available to a wide audience for posterity purposes.

Navigating around the web site

There are two separate navigation menus to use in finding your way around our web site. The main navigation menu is fixed immediately below the red horizontal plane in the header of each page. This navigation bar contains static links or categories of links to the Home page, the Parish List, About Kent OPC, Parish Navigator, the Kent Family Garden, More Kent Data, Research Info, Get Involved, and Join Us. Hovering or running your mouse over each of these categories will change the font colour from dark brown to red.

You will also see that several of the main menu categories have expanding menus that drop vertically down from the primary category. A few of those expanded menu items also contain small right-facing arrows next to certain menu items that when moused over or hovered on produce an additional horizontally-oriented expanding menu to the right, which contain additional links to other areas of our web site. An example of this sub-navigation can be found under the More Kent Data category. When the first sub-menu expands downward you will see that the second item on the sub-menu is Occupations. Next to that item is an arrow that when the Occupations item is hovered on with your mouse will produce the second sub-menu horizontally to the right where you will see the items of Coastguards & Stations, Photographers, and Pubs & Brewers.

The "More Kent Data" menu item also holds links to index pages for Wills transcribed and available on this site, as well as an index page to Feature Articles that are housed in the Kent Family Garden. Over time both of these items will be expanded upon.

The About Kent OPC category contains the menu items that lead to pages on our site that pertain specifically to the identity of the Kent Online Parish Clerks project. Here, you will find links to, among other pages, links for Contact Us and Acknowledgments.

The Get Involved category of the menu holds links to our Volunteer page, and a page containing information should you wish to make a donation or gift to the Kent Online Parish Clerks project.

The Join Us category contains the links to our Facebook and Twitter pages.

new navigation showing cascading layers of sub-menus

Screen shot showing new navigation expandable menus. Click on image, above, to enlarge.

The Parish Pages

The individual main parish pages are the nerve centre for finding records and resources relating to any particular parish. All individual main parish pages record the existence or non-existence of an OPC for that particular parish. If there is an OPC available his or her name and contact details will be posted along with a synopsis of the records or resources from which they are able to do lookups. All main parish pages can be accessed via our Parish List page the link to which is found under the Parish Navigator category on the menu bar.

The Parish Navigator category on the menu bar will contain a different sub-menu for different pages of the parish area of our web site:

1. On each primary web site page the Parish Navigator holds only the link to the Parish List.

2. On each main parish page the Parish Navigator holds:

a link to the Parish List, and,
the name and email address of the OPC for that parish, if there is one.

3. On all of the sub-pages of a particular parish, the Parish Navigator holds:

a link to the Parish List,
a link to the main parish page that is associated with the sub-page you are visiting,
and
the name and email address of the OPC, if there is one, for that same parish.

The main parish page also includes links to off-site sources of free information such as the 1881 census available on www.familysearch.org, the free-to-search index of non-conformist non-parochial records, monumental inscriptions by the Kent Archaelogical Society (KAS), parish tithe commutation awards also hosted by the KAS, and numerous historical directories. So, if you are interested in a parish that does not have an OPC and/or any transcribed records, you will still have available to search the free information that is linked to from that parish page.

new navigation showing Parish List layered menu

new navigation showing Parish Navigator with additional features

Screen shots showing new navigation menus. Click on images, on right and left, to enlarge.

The Kent Family Garden

Kent's Family Garden was made possible by the generous donation of Mr. L. Earl Chamberlain of his licence to the software to the Kent Online Parish Clerks project and by the generous contribution of Darrin Lythgoe, program developer of The Next Generation software, in agreeing to the donation and transfer of the licence to us.

The Kent Family Garden was built with the TNG data storage program, version 6.0 and is fully searchable on a simple search (upper left-hand side search boxes) and on an advanced search function, the link for which is immediately below the simple search boxes. Immediately below the advanced search link is a link to a page containing an index of this area of the website by surname.

It is in this area of the web site that you will encounter the second unique navigation menu. Along the left side of each of the web pages in the Kent Family Garden is a list of navigation links that are intrinsic to navigating around the garden and do not appear on the other web pages of this web site. Two links back to the main area of the website - Return to OPC Home and Parish List - do appear on each page of the Kent Family Garden in the left-hand navigation menu.

The home page of the Kent Family Garden also contains links to several "Feature Articles". These articles are of general historical or social interest and may be largely drawn from newspaper reports. However, these articles are too lengthy to be included in the Newspaper Extracts section of the primary web pages. The feature articles can also be reached from the "Histories" link in the left-hand navigation menu from all pages of the Kent Family Garden. More feature articles will be added over time.

Notwithstanding that there is a "Log In" function available, it is not necessary to "log in" to view the data contained in the trees in the Kent Family Garden. In fact, we do not grant collaborative rights to the trees in the garden. If you have data that you wish to submit to correct posted data we would ask that you send us a GEDCOM file of your research data complete with source citations. We will then post that data in the Kent Family Garden as a new and unique tree with a link to your email address. For additional information with regard to submitting GEDCOMs and other similar collaborative material to the Kent Online Parish Clerks project, please read sections III and IV of our Terms and Conditions of Use information.

The "Reports" function of the Kent Family Garden has been suspended. Sadly, like the "Suggestion" and "Contact Us" sections of the Kent Family Garden unscrupluous web hackers exploited all three PHP scripts to unleash a flurry of scam and spam emails sent from our web site.

There are a number of Will transcripts that have been posted in the Kent Family Garden. The easiest way to determine what Wills are part of the garden is to click on the "Sources" link in the left-hand navigation menu. The sources are then listed in alphabetical order with the Wills, in various categories, listed on the bottom of the second page of sources.

All access to the family data must begin with either a "Search" for a surname or full name, or by clicking the "Surnames" link to display the list of surnames maintained in the database. Selecting a starting surname letter from the A to Z list will then display a page containing all of the surnames that start with that letter. For example, selecting the letter W displays a new page listing all of the surnames in the database that begin with that letter, together with a numeral which represents how many individuals of that surname are in the database. Clicking on a surname will open a new search results page that contains a more detailed list of individuals of that chosen surname, which includes the given name, the birth/christening date, the place of the event, the personal ID number and a link to the owner of the tree.

Screen shots showing various features of the Kent Family Garden. Click on images to enlarge.