It’ll involve the scanning and sharing of millions of Greffe records, parish church registers, Occupation identity cards and conveyances, to Findmypast’s main servers. 

Two staff have been sent to Guernsey to undertake the work, with the main focus being on key records for family history research. 

“Guernsey has previously fallen behind other jurisdictions in digitising its records, and this opportunity is an excellent chance for us to catch up,” said Island Archivist Vikki Hart in a recent statement 

“It will make our records more accessible, especially to researchers not able to visit the different archives in person. These are popular records for viewing and are therefore handled frequently, so digitisation will help us to preserve the original records and make decisions around conservation. We are all very excited to be working with Findmypast on this project.” 

The digitisation of records has been a major focus of the Priaulx Library ever since Steve Foote took up the position of Chief Executive in 2022. He joined Express in the studio to discuss the project. 

“We want to go from the furthest behind, to the leaders” 

“The Priaulx Library is the main place people go when starting to put together their family tree,” says Steve, who said the project was born from a want for people to be able to explore their lineage online. 

“The records we've got are the most complete collection of deaths and marriages, both from the Greffe and also the older ones from the church registers, going back, some of them, to the 1500s. 

“But they're all on microfilm.” 

Microfilms contain microphotographs of documents, pictures and information, utilised to reduce the space occupied by stacks and stacks of documents. They can really only be read through a specific reader, of which the Priaulx has two. But these readers were produced in the 50s and it’s becoming ever more difficult to source replacement parts. 

A steering group was formed and a tender process was launched to find a digital archivist, and a decision was made to go with Findymypast, a UK based geneaology service. 

Steve said Guernsey currently stands out as a ‘black hole’ in the British Isles with very little digital access to historic records, but with this new partnership agreed, “we want to set ourselves the ambition of going from the furthest behind to the furthest ahead”. 

The project is set to be complete early next year, with millions of documents available to search online. 

“We’re delighted to be working with our new partners to digitise this important collection and enable families across the globe to discover their Guernsey roots,” said Mary McKee, UK Archives Manager at Findmypast. 

“These records tell the stories of thousands of people – from intimate family moments to the major events that shaped lives and communities – and we’re excited to bring these to light."