Parish registers
Tracing a family before civil registration: Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, bishop's transcripts, nonconformist registers and where to find them online and in archives.
Before civil registration began in 1837, the record of a life was kept by the parish church: baptised, married and buried, each written into the register by the clergyman. Registers were ordered in 1538, and many survive from the late 1500s, which is why an English family can often be traced to the reign of Elizabeth I. This is slower work than the census, but it is where a tree gets deep.
What the entries contain
| Baptism | Date of baptism (not birth, though from 1813 some give both), child's name, parents' names (father only, in early registers), and from 1813 the abode and the father's occupation. Illegitimate children are recorded with the mother alone, often with a blunt note. |
|---|---|
| Marriage | From 1754 (Hardwicke's Act) a printed form: names, parishes, whether by banns or licence, signatures or marks, and two witnesses. From 1837 the civil form with ages, occupations and fathers. Before 1754 a single line. |
| Burial | Date of burial, name, from 1813 abode and age. Earlier entries may give only a name and "widow" or "infant". |
Register entries before 1813 vary enormously with the vicar's diligence. Some wrote occupations and relationships; some wrote a name and nothing else.
Bishop's transcripts
From 1598 each parish sent an annual copy of its register to the bishop. These "BTs" survive where the register doesn't, fill gaps and occasionally contain entries the register omits. Always check both. They are held in diocesan record offices and many are online.
Nonconformists and Catholics
From the late 1600s a growing share of families were Baptist, Methodist, Quaker, Congregationalist or Catholic and don't appear in the parish register except, often, for burials and (between 1754 and 1837) marriages, which had to be in the parish church unless Quaker or Jewish. Nonconformist registers surrendered to the government in 1837 are at The National Archives (RG 4 to RG 8) and online; Catholic registers are increasingly digitised. If a family vanishes from the parish register, look for the chapel.
Where to find them
- County record offices hold the original registers and BTs; most have deposited microfilm or images with one of the subscription sites, and a few have their own online systems. See archives and societies.
- Free indexes: FreeREG (volunteer transcriptions, growing fast), FamilySearch (the old IGI plus newer indexes and images), and the Online Parish Clerks projects for several counties. See free genealogy websites.
- Subscription sites: Ancestry has large collections from London, Lancashire, Dorset and others; Findmypast has many counties through family history society agreements; TheGenealogist has others. Which site has which county matters more than which site is "best"; see paid sites compared.
- Family history societies have transcribed and indexed registers for decades; their CDs, downloads and searchable databases are often the most accurate index available.
Reading the handwriting and the calendar
Secretary hand before about 1700 takes practice; The National Archives has a free palaeography tutorial. Latin was used in some registers before 1733 (Johannes, Gulielmus, Maria; "filius" son, "filia" daughter, "sepultus" buried). Until 1752 the year began on 25 March, so a date in January 1720 is written 1720 but falls in what we would call 1721; researchers write it 1720/1. Also allow for the eleven days dropped in September 1752.
Working method
- Take the birthplace and approximate birth year from the census.
- Find the baptism; note the parents' names.
- Find all baptisms of that couple's children to confirm the family.
- Find the parents' marriage, usually one to three years before the first baptism, often in the bride's parish.
- Find the bride's and groom's baptisms, and repeat.
- Check burials to rule out a child who died and a namesake born later: the "same name twice" trap.
When a family can't be found in the expected parish, search the neighbours; people married in the next parish, had children baptised where they worked, and were buried where they died. A one-mile radius then a five-mile radius usually finds them.
When the registers run out
Before the 1600s, or where registers are lost, other records take over: manorial records, wills (see wills and probate), tax lists, settlement examinations and the poor law. For most families the realistic limit is the late 1600s or early 1700s; see the FAQs on how far back you can go.