Good news for everyone with early ancestors in Essex. In September Essex Archives put its pre-1700 parish registers online at http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/. This searchable database contains about 80,000 images of original parish register pages. It also contains their catalogue of parish registers so that you can see at a glance which parish registers they hold and in what format. Note though that parish registers for the London Borough of Waltham Forest (formerly in Essex) are deposited at the Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow, not at Essex Archives.