What are Microfiche?

What are Microfiche ?

Microfiche are miniaturised copies of pages of information.

Micro fiche are like postcard sized microfilms They are miniaturised and printed onto a transparent plastic slip about the size of a postcard. Many pages of detailed information can be stored on a single fiche.

To be able to read the pages you need either a microfiche reader of your own, or to be able to borrow or hire one.

In the UK many libraries and similar buildings have microfilm readers that you can book time on, and many of the LFHHS branches have their own machines for members to use.

Microfiche readers work like a sort of microscope, reading the miniaturised pages and projecting them onto a screen for you to read. Some of the bigger machines have page printers built in.

What information is on them ?

Some fiche are specific to a particular document - such as a Burial Register, others may have several types of information on one fiche - perhaps burial information and monumental inscriptions for example.

There may be variation from fiche to fiche, partly because improved technology has enabled more information to be incorporated on a single fiche. However, the sort of information you might expect to find on different types is shown below.

Please remember that as with all transcribed and copied information, it is always best to check the original source material if you can do so.

Birth / Baptism Registers (B / Bp)
These fiche generally contain extracts of the information in the relevant baptism register

Marriage Index Fiche
These began as a Society project to index the marriages in Lancashire in the period before civil registration of marriages, and after printed registers had been introduced. Generally this means the dates are from around 1812 to 1837. The original proposal was to provide an index that gave the Groom's name, the Bride's name, the Church and the Year of marriage. Finding a person in the index should enable you to know which church and which year to search.

Marriage Register Fiche
As people found they could squeeze more information on the page by using abbreviations, they could include the full date of the marriage. The fiche listed as Marriage Registers are generally of this fuller variety, and also start earlier. They may contain other information pertinent to the marriage.

Death and Burial Register Fiche and Grave Occ. Lists
These fiche generally contain extracts of the information in the burial register. This usually includes the name of the deceased and the date of burial. The original registers vary considerably in format and information recorded, so the fiche may contain other information such as grave number, date of death, age, last abode, and possibly other information. Some of the fiche are from Grave Books that list who is buried in which grave; these are referred to in the list as Grave Occupancy fiche.

Monumental Inscription Fiche (MI's)
These fiche are concerned with gravestone details, and vary from listing only names, to fiche that include all the text and some details of the stone work. In some instances transcription was limited to name only - for example, because a graveyard was about to be cleared and someone had to record all the names in a very short time. Most of the fiche, though not all of them, list all the text on the stone.

Census Index Fiche
These are indexes to census records, not a transcription of the census itself. The first one to be completed was the 1851 Census, which generally lists each surname and the folio numbers on which it occurred, so it is a basic index to the census. Some fiche also have a Street Index in the same form. Other fiche may have the surname of the Head of each household shown, together with the surname of anyone else with a different surname in that household.

You should note that access to a copy of the Census iteslf will be required to complete the research.

"Others"
This is not a heading in the column, but a collective term for the source material fiche attributable to a place, that do not fit into any of the previous categories. The fiche that are coloured navy on the website, and include things like School attendance records, newspaper obituaries and so on. The content of these fiche is difficult to explain here because they are all different subjects. Usually, the description used will explain what is on them.

"Misc Fiche"
There are some fiche that do not fit into the "place" listing at all. These include fiche holding back copies of Lancashire magazine, and those which are one name studies for example. These are listed under a separate link on the fiche menu.

Why are they in different colours ?

Only to help you distinguish between the different types of information:

Red is for Birth/Baptism

Green is for Marriage

Black is for Death/Burial

Maroon/Brown is for Monumental Inscriptions

Violet is for Census records

Navy Blue is for miscellaneous records and mixed records

A grey background means the fiche is temporarily withdrawn from sale

What do the headings mean ?

Fiche Reference Number: is just the number assigned by the Society to identify that fiche uniquely.

Set Size: shows the number of fiche that make up the set for that particular subject.

Price £.p: this is the price of that set of fiche not including postage and packing costs.

Main Title: The name by which that fiche set is known. Generally it is the name of a place, so if the fiche holds information about Parish Registers from a church in Preston, you would expect to see "Preston" here. The fiche are organised in alphabetical order using this column.

Sub Title: The secondary description of the fiche set. Sometimes this will also contain dates - especially where multiple registers are on a single fiche e.g. "baptisms 1820-1830; burials 1820-1860"

Dates: Any dates relevant to this fiche set.

Event or Subject: a description of the main subject of the fiche - e.g. monumental Inscriptions, or Burial registers. Please follow this terms link to know more about the meaning of the terms used in this column, and to find out more about what is on the fiche.