As mentioned, prior to 1837 it was the Churches that kept track of Births, Marriages and Deaths in their particular parish. We are going to concentrate on the birth records first, or should I say the baptism / christening records, depending on the Church.
These events were recorded on blank pages in a bound register and prior to about 1754 all in one volume. I had fun going through one parish where the early entries (late 1700s) were all in Latin! After 1754, a law was passed stating that marriages be recorded in a separate book and by 1812 there were preprinted registers available. This made for some consistency in information being recorded.
Beginning in 1598, copies of entries from many parishes were copied and sent annually to the bishop for the diocese of that area and these copies are known as Bishop’s Transcripts. If possible, try and look at both records as some information may be found on one and not the other.
Information you find will depend on a particular parish and even the Vicar and what the parents tell them. This is also where the variants in the spelling of the surname may arise. And we have to deal with the penmanship of the scribe.
Baptism registers usually contain:
- Child’s name
- Father’s name, and after 1813 usually his occupation and residence
- Mother’s name, sometimes her maiden name
- Baptism date, sometimes birth date
As you can see there are quite a few “sometimes” here. And I did come across a couple of baptisms where there was the mother listed but no father. This does pose a problem for the parish as it is up to the father to provide for the family and he could be charged a fine. I had suspicions about the father, a married man and when I checked the marriage registrations later for the children, his name was there.
So, in Alice’s case we know she was baptised on 28th Nov 1822 (I did not copy the top of the page but that is where the year is listed). Her father was William Parsons, lived in Frodsham and was a surgeon. Her mother was Alice. While it does give us the baptism date, we still do not know the actual birth date. In Alice’s case and that of her siblings I have only been able to record the baptisms but it does give us an idea.
Scrolling through the registers may also help find missing children. Same parent names, same occupation, same town/village is a good indication. My primary source to start building a family has been the census records that were taken every ten years but if a child had been born and died between censuses then the registers will help. Cross check and baptisms to deaths to double-check.
There is no timeframe as to when the child had to be baptised. I have one family where six members were all baptised on the same day with a note for two of them being “adult baptism” and another where four of the children were baptised at the same time but had various years of birth.
The copy below does show the top of the preprinted register with the headings. As you can see, the first entry does include birth information. This would be a side note or entry below as there is no column for birth information.
For the records I have found that I flip and cross-reference between two main sites:
www.ancestry.ca (.ca because I’m in Canada but it provides information from around the world, also a .com or .uk) and www.findmypast.com as they have good databases of records, some found on one and not the other, then its screen grab as necessary. The downside is both of these sites are paid sites. There are free sites but they will not provide as much detail.
Part 3 will be Birth registrations after 1837.
Across the Pond 