What is parish records, other than birth marriages and deaths?

Question

I am sooooooooooooooooo confused. people tell me all the time about parish records hold births deaths and marriages. but I can get those records so what else are parish records for

Answer 1

To actually answer your question :-

Some other parish records can include:- minutes of vestry or parish meetings, overseers' accounts, churchwarden's accounts, affidavits for burial in wool, workhouse and poor relief, charities, settlement records, bastardy records, rate books, apprenticehip records, orphans and foundlings, maintenance of highways, law and order and the parish constable, protestation returns, local censuses etc. The complete records of many parishes no longer exist, but where they do they can be very useful. The parish church registers and other records, were kept in a wooden strong-box called the parish chest, and most of the records date back to at least the mid to late 1500s.

Answer 2

A large amount of parish records are held in churches where the families lived.

Answer 3

I assume you a in the UK, which means you can get official BMD records only after 1837!

There were no BMD certificates before 1837 and the only records kept were parish records. Couples were required by law to marry in their local parish church.

They were not compelled  to have children baptized, but many thought that an unbaptized child would not be admitted to Heaven!

Parish records show BURIALS,not deaths!

The churches were obliged to send copies of their PR entries to their Bishop,so these Bishops' Transcripts are also a source of this info.

The main problem with PRs is that they vary greatly in what details they contain, and are hand written.

They are, however, the only source of BMD records prior to 1837 in many cases.

Another problem is that social status affected entries. This is an example of some I saw in Norfolk:

7th July 1737  William Smith to Anne

8th July Adam Rodgers, son of William Rodgers of Brook Farm to Mary Williams son of Paul Wiilliams of MaypoleFarm

Answer 4

I want to know also...

Answer 5

If you are Catholic of the Roman rite, they will usually have a separate regsiter for Baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Marriage and Death.  These records usually contain parent information including mother's maiden name.

In Eastern Rite Catholic churches, I understand First Communion and Confirmation are administered at Baptism.

Answer 6

Before registration of births marriages and death were taken over by the state (July 1837 in England & Wales, 1855 in Scotland, other dates elsewhere), the recording of life events was the sole responsibility of the church, as with wills.

Each church was legally required to keep a record of the baptisms, marriages and burials that took place in the parish, a law first enacted by Henry VIII in 1538.  In practice though, very few registers go back quite this far, but this does allow for an extra 300 years of record-keeping from before central registration began.

The differences in the church records over birth and death certificates from the GRO of course is that a date of baptism is not the same as a date of birth.  Some registers recorded both dates, but this depended on the dilegence of the person doing the record-keeping - a child could have been several days, weeks, months or even years old when baptised.  Also, the date of a burial in a register  is different from the date of death on a certificate - a few days later, obviously.  Churches continued to keep records, even after 1837, so registers should still be consulted for baptisms and burials in addition to GRO certificates for births and deaths.

Answer 7

Most of these records can be found in the main County Library/local Studies Centre of the area you are studying. What is available varies from parish to parish, depends how well the officials of the time recorded and retained.

If there is a Family History Society for that county/area, it may be worth while visiting any headquarters, you never know what you may find. The Devon Family History Society, for example, has a place in Exeter, and they keep a file for each parish. I have found a lot there.

Answer 8

Parish records were kept to record life events that occurred in a particular parish, they began keeping these records in 1538. These records were a record of  BMD, the birth being noted more often than not as a "baptism" .

http://www.parishregister.co.uk/

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

Baptism/Christening and Marriages. Especially useful for research before recording births & deaths was compulsory