Parish or church registers have been kept since 1538, but not all churches have surviving records which stretch back this far. There can also be gaps in their records, particularly during the English Civil War and Commonwealth period of 1640-60.
Registers before 1754 usually combine baptisms, marriages and burials in one book with some early entries in Latin. The amount of information given and its arrangement in the register varies across parishes and the persons making the entries. Churches used registers with a pro forma from 1754 for marriages and 1813 for baptisms and burials, requiring the inclusion of particular information so standardising the format.
Most registers after these dates do not give more information than that required, but occasionally you will find dates of birth, mothers’ maiden names, names of reputed fathers of illegitimate children, causes of death, and other comments listed alongside the entries.
50 year periods: In some 50 year periods there are not entries for all the years.
Parish/Archbishop records: Due to some of the poor quality originals for early records, the entries may be a combination of the two sources of information.
Early baptism, marriage and burial records: Transcribed by Julie Harold.
Comments: In some records there are details shown between square brackets. These are 'comments' by the transcriber and are not from the original document - the comments are not guaranteed correct.
