PARISH REGISTERS
1538 – Soon after declaring himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, Henry VIII instructed his Chancellor,
Thomas Cromwell to order every incumbant of each parish to record the date and names of every Christening,
wedding and burial.
The format, information and survival rates of parish registers do vary across the years and places. The first twenty
years saw them recorded on individual sheets of paper and very few survived. Eventually they were bound in
registers, often a single one for all three records until 1754 when marriages were recorded in separate volumes. In
1813 (Rose’s Act) separate printed format registers for each were provided.
Marriages
The earliest had only names of bride and groom and the date of the wedding.
Hardwick’s Marriage Act of 1754 tried to regularise marriages by ordering they must
take place in a parish church and performed by an Anglican minister. Exceptions
include only Jews and Quakers so Roman Catholics and Non-Conformists could only
legally marry in the Church of England if their children were to be deemed ‘legitimate’.
From then each marriage entry had to include:
 Names of bride and groom
 Their marital status (bachelor, spinster, widow, widower)
 Residence of each at time of marraige (or otp – of this parish)
 Whether the ceremony was following banns, licence or with consent of parents (if one or both parties were
under 21)
 The signature or mark of bride and groom, and also of at least two witnesses
 The name of the officiating clergyman.
Banns were introduced as a public intention to marry read
on three consecutive Sundays prior to marriage in the
parish churches of both bride and groom. This may be
recorded in the marriage register or in a separate banns
book.
Marriage by licence avoided this and was considered as
higher social status though it might be due to pregnancy.
Neither banns or licence guarantees they did subsequently
marry in that parish or at all. Most common practice was to
marry at the bride’s parish church but if not found you
should try the neighbouring parishes.
Baptisms (Christenings)
Babies were often baptised soon after birth as infant life was very fragile and some clergy would refuse to bury and
unbaptised child in consecrated ground. The early registers showed only the names of child and parent(s) and date.
After 1813 it added the father’s occupation and home address and the clergy name. Some also added the date of
birth.
When a child died it was often common practice to name the next child born of the same gender with the same
names, so do be careful when tracing a person’s history using registers that you have the same person, by checking
burial registers too. The adding of a stamp duty in 1694 led to many families delaying baptisms till its repeal in 1706.
Burials
Early records show only name, age and address and burial date. A few might have death date and cause of death.
The National Burial Index can be found at www.findmypast.co.uk but not all parishes are yet available so look out for
published books or CD Roms of Monumental Inscriptions produced by family history societies (see www.ffhs.org.uk).
These registers once full are usually to be found deposited at Diocesan Records Offices (often part of the County
Records office) but there may be microfilm copies at libraries or local archives. Many are now indexed and available
online. The largest free database is www.familysearch.org. Others include www.freereg.org.uk and
www.ukbmd,org.uk/online_parish_clerk. Many family history societies have produced databases, indexes and
transcriptions of registers and can be bought via www.genfair.co.uk, and can be used online at www.genuki.org.uk.
Some local records offices have published printed registers in book form often including a name index. You may find
some at www.ukga.org. Boyds marriage index can be found at www.findmypast.co.uk and contains about seven
million names. To locate the correct parish you can use the Phillimore Atlas & Index of Parish Registers found in most
archives. It contains maps with the parish boundaries clearly marked.
After the English Civil War (c1645 to 1660) there are gaps in many registers. Don’t forget that parish registers
continued in use long after civil registration was introduced in 1837.
OTHER PARISH RECORDS
Churchwarden’s Accounts
Details of income received from the church rate and disbursements of church, land and parish activities. They
include payments to local tradesmen for work on the church fabric, purchases of wine and payments to other
parishioners for washing linen, catching vermin and other services.
Overseers Of The Poor Records
These show the poorest, unhealthiest and least lucky of parishioners. Parish
officers were responsible for ensuring only the needy received parish relief.
They went to great lengths to keep costs down by sending pauper children
away as apprentices, removing vagrants and strangers and ensuring fathers of
illegitimate children paid maintenance.
Bishops’ Transcripts (BTs)
From 1597 incumbants were required to send a full copy of every entry made in registers to their diocesan authority
every year by Lady Day (25 March). These can often fill the gaps in the parish records.
Dade and Barrington Registers
Dade and Barrington Registers are detailed registers that contain more information than standard contemporary
baptism and burial registers. They commence in the late eighteenth century, but come to an end in 1812, when they
were superseded by the requirements of George Rose’s 1812 Act. They are named after Rev. William Dade (b.1740).
From 1763 until his death in 1790, he was curate, vicar and rector of five parishes in York and two in the East Riding
of Yorkshire. He was far ahead of his time in seeing the value of including as much information on individuals in the
parish register as possible.
In 1777 Archbishop William Markham decided that Dade's scheme should be introduced throughout his diocese. The
baptismal registers were to include:
 Child's name,
 seniority (e.g. first son),
 father's name,
 profession,
 place of abode and descent (i.e. names, professions and places of abode of the father's parents),
 similar information about the mother, and mother's parents,
 the infant's date of birth and baptism.
Registers of this period are a gold-mine for genealogists, but the scheme was so much work for the parish priests
that it did not last long. From about 1783 the Rev Shute Barrington whilst Bishop of Salisbury instigated a somewhat
simpler system than Dade's, and followed this in Northumberland and Durham from 1798, when he became Bishop
of Durham.