Parish Locator is a handy freeware program designed by D M Bennett to locate any parish in the British Isles and relate it spatially to any other in the same island. The program is available for downloading at the "Our Bennett Family History" site. This program would be particularly useful when an ancestor is known to have been in a particular parish, and there is a need to identify nearby parishes that might also be searched for additional records.
Scope and uses[]
Each entry has county, country, OS ref, easting, and northing. There is some duplication because of different sources.
A search places the searcher in the alphabetical list of parishes, allowing easy scroll up or down.
Selecting one as "1st Parish" then another as "2nd Parish" allows calculation of distance (in miles and kilometres) and bearing (in degrees and compass directions) between the two. (Not available if one is in Ireland, the other in Great Britain.)
Entering a distance in "Radius around Parish 1" produces a list showing all parishes within that radius and their distances and directions. Example:
The following list of Parishes are within a
20 Mile Radius of Berwick-upon-Tweed,Golden Square Presbyterian, N, NBL, ENG.
Parish Name Type,County,Country,OsRef Distance & Direction =========== ========================= ==================== Abbey St Bathans P BEW SCT NT7662 15.6 West by North West Ancroft P NBL ENG NU0045 4.4 South Ayton P BEW SCT NT9261 7.1 North West Bamburgh P NBL ENG NU1734 15.8 South East Belford P NBL ENG NU1033 13.6 South by South East Belford R NBL ENG NU1033 13.6 South by South East Berwick R NBL ENG NT9952 0.0 Berwick, Liberty of P BEW SCT NT9953 0.6 North Berwick-upon-Tweed P NBL ENG NT9952 0.0 Berwick-upon-Tweed,Golden Square Presbyterian N NBL ENG NT9952 0.0 Branxton P NBL ENG NT8937 11.2 South by South West Bunkle and Preston P BEW SCT NT8059 12.6 West by North West Carham P NBL ENG NT7938 15.2 South West Chatton P NBL ENG NU0528 15.4 South by South East Chillingham P NBL ENG NU0626 16.7 South by South East Chirnside P BEW SCT NT8756 7.9 West by North West Cockburnspath P ELN SCT NT7770 17.7 North West
and so on. (That last one seems to be one of the rare errors.)
Then you can hit "Print" or "Create a CSV File" or "Plot". "Plot" (with or without some restriction options) gives you a zoomable diagram with circles indicating distances.
Extract from licence agreement[]
Copyright © 1997/2003 D M Bennett
Original data from which this database has been developed was supplied by Gerald Lawson and used with his kind permission.
Program written in Delphi3 © Borland International
This Program is Freeware and may be freely distributed in its original form, with all files intact and unmodified.
No charge may be made except to cover the nominal cost of the media.
External links[]
- E-Mail: Davembennett"at"blueyonder.co.uk (checked, Dec 2020)
- Web site: https://www.benynet.me.uk/
- Programs: https://www.benynet.me.uk/downloads