elcome to theislandwiki, a gateway to two historical websites featuring the Channel Islands, a group of small islands in the English Channel, close to the French coast, which are possessions of the British Crown and part of the British Isles. Originally part of the Guernsey Society website, theislandwiki still benefits from the generous sponsorship of its web hosting expenses by the Society.
History
The websites are the historical encyclopaedias devoted to the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey, Donkipedia and Jerripedia, which have been established since 2010 and have since built up a substantial worldwide audience, interested in the histories of the Channel Islands and their families. These websites contain the largest online repository of information about the islands, with hundreds of family trees, thousands of family records and an illustrated general history of the islands.
Future plans
They will eventually be joined here by further websites, including one dedicated to images of Jersey, one to the history of postcards in the island, and another to images of towns and villages and the countryside of the nearby north Brittany coast and the Cotentin peninsular of Normandy. Regrettably these projects have had to be put on hold to allow resources to be devoted to the continuing development of Jerripedia. Please visit our sites and enjoy what they have to offer. Then come back again and keep exploring!
The continuing success of Jerripedia has been recognised by the prestigious British genealogy magazine, Your Family History.
They have awarded Jerripedia founder and editor, Mike Bisson, their inaugural Volunteer of the Year award for 2013.Family records
Jerripedia now contains a much-enlarged index of records of Jersey family baptisms, marriages and burials in the 12 parish churches from the earliest registers in the 16th century to the 19th century. Although the index is not yet finished, it contains a full set of baptism records for all 12 parishes, with the exception of a very small number of missing St Helier records. More marriage and burial records have been added progressively in recent weeks and by mid-February (some months ahead of our original target), when the site celebrates its third birthday, we expect to have virtually a full set of over 200,000 records, in addition to the 30,000-plus St Helier baptisms from 1842 to 1909 which have been on the site since 2010.
This is the first time that Jersey church records have been available online and it represents a major step forward for Jerripedia, which is committed to adding to this service in the future and continuing to provide the best reference source for family historians researching their ancestry in the island.
Alongside this work we are developing a fully searchable database of all records so that searches for names can be made across all parishes, as well as in individual parishes, and across baptism, marriage and burial records at the same time. Records are now being added progressively to this remarkable new resource, which was not previously expected to be available before the middle of 2013, can now be accessed so that the limited number of records can be searched. Records will added on a weekly basis in the coming months.
Full details of our FREE family records collection
You will find links to all the records and background information on our Family records page.
Donkipedia, launched in February 2010, is the largest and most comprehensive on-line resource for those seeking information about their family history and the island their ancestors lived in.
The website specialises in the history of Guernsey families, the lives of famous Guernseymen, the literature of the island and many other aspects of island life, and contains a growing collecting of historic images.
Donkipedia is growing steadily and contains a large number of trees of important Guernsey families.
Jerripedia, launched in February 2010 within days of Donkipedia, is the one-stop-shop for anyone researching their ancestors in Jersey. It also provides a comprehensive picture of the island from pre-historic days to the German Occupation of the mid-20th century and right up to today.
With an unrivalled collection of historic photographs and works of art, Jerripedia shows exactly what Jersey looked like over the centuries, and particularly during the last 150 years.
It contains over 275 pages dedicated to island families, over 1,000 family trees, and over 300,000 baptism and other family records.
