RESEARCH MATERIAL on
Cardens, Redmans and relatives
in and around Brighton, Sussex

Please read this important HEALTH WARNING

I do not want to be held responsible for causing you mental anguish by disseminating inaccurate or incorrect genealogical information!! You therefore need to be aware of the nature of this material before attempting to use it.

Although computerised, to make sorting and searching easy, the material is nothing more than my "rough notes" from visits to record offices. My main sources were the Parish Registers, transcripts and indexes of St Nicholas Parish Church, Brighton and Falmer Parish Church (held at the East Sussex Record Office (ESRO), Lewes, E.Sussex) and the 1881 Census. Also the Bishops' Transcripts for Falmer Parish Church (held at the West Sussex Record Office (WSRO), Chichester, W.Sussex). In some cases, microfilmed copies were extremely difficult to read, and the originals were inspected instead; and this was usually noted by me as a comment to my records. In other cases, a cousin and I spent a day at ESRO and got dates that differed by one year; all of these have now been rechecked and corrected and, where transcripts were originally used, the microfilmed Registers have been taken as the definitive source except where they are almost illegible. For the 1790s, particularly for burials in the period 1792-94, the Registers are unindexed; not surprisingly because the pages are faint, damaged and even missing. It is almost certain that some relatives have got "lost" in this decade.

My researches were checked against the Mormons' British Isles Vital Record Index (VRI) CD. There are quite considerable gaps in the VRI; on the other hand, the VRI sometimes pointed to gaps in my research. In one case the VRI had combined what are actually two (possibly duplicated) records in the Parish Register with slightly different information. The VRI compilers were doubtless trying to be helpful, but "interpreted" data does not have the same value as primary data. A brief check against the Mormons' IGI suggests that the IGI is best avoided here. There are far too many copies (with slight variations) of the same information and some misleading associations.

In the case of births/baptisms, plausible (but not necessarily proven) family groupings have been marked in different colours.

Please use my material only as "raw data", and feel free to draw your own conclusions.