I have spent a couple of my lunch breaks this week in Horsham Library, extracting FAIRS entries from the Cowfold parish registers. Although I could have accessed the originals on microfiche (and I probably will later on) I chose to use the transcription published by the Sussex Record Society, which has the benefit of an index.
I also discovered, or rather remembered, that I not only have the monumental inscriptions from the book deposited at the West Sussex Record Office, but I also have some MIs for West Grinstead from one of the Sussex Family History Group CDs.
It then occurred to me that I had already been to West Grinstead churchyard before and photographed several FAIRS gravestones. I loaded up Picasa and searched through until I discovered a set of photos from March 2008. They weren’t labelled or tagged, so obviously I was being “organisationally challenged” at the time. I am not actually sure which ones I have or if have them all, so I will probably need to go back and check for more at some stage.
So now I have a lot of information gathered ready, this weekend I will try and piece together a family tree, and see how far I can confidently go back before I need to go in search of more evidence.
