Medieval There were no parish registers in Medieval times but some monastic houses developed the custom of noting the births and deaths of the leading local families in their service books which may or may not have survived.
1538 Parish Registers became mandatory on 5 September when Thomas Cromwell, Vicar General to Henry VIII, ordered clergy to keep records of baptisms, marriages, and burials. However, many parish registers do not survive from this initial period because records have been lost over the years. The order required every incumbent to enter details of every wedding, christening and burial in his parish into a book. The parish had to provide a strong parish chest with two locks in which to keep parish registers; the incumbent had one key and the churchwardens the other. The entries in the register were to be made each Sunday after the service in the presence of one of the churchwardens.
1558 Elizabeth I passed another law that was essentially a reinforcement of the previous law which resulted in the keeping of many more registers. Entries in many of these very early records were sparse giving only the father's name at a christening and only the deceased person’s name in a burial entry.
1598 The Church of England required all entries to be made on parchment rather than paper, and that all previous entries should be transferred to the new parchment. Birth and death information was not considered important at the time and the name of the mother was considered to be of no significance. There were many inconsistencies in the way baptisms, marriages and burials were recorded as it was left to the discretion of the incumbent as to what information was included. This applied up to the time of Hardwicke's and Rose’s Acts.
1603 Every parish chest was now to have three locks with keys allocated thus - one for the incumbent, one for the parish clerk and one for the churchwardens. The meant that the chest could only be opened with all three present. Incumbents frequently just kept notes of the events in day books which could be entered in the registers when every keyholder was present to allow access to the chest. Sometimes private baptisms did not get into the records.
1631-1706 A fee was introduced for birth registrations but was generally ignored. It was hard to enforce so did not last long.
1644 Both parent's names begin to appear in the baptism register and each parish or chapelry held its own register book on vellum recording the dates of baptisms and the dates of births and parents’ names.
1642-1660 This period covers the English Civil War so researching between these dates will be tricky. Entries into a register were not generally made during this time because it was not considered important. During the period of the Commonwealth, which included the Civil War, anyone wishing to register an ecclesiastical event had to pay a fee of one shilling; this meant that many events were left unrecorded because families could not afford the fee. In 1653, records of births, marriages and deaths were entered into secular ‘parish registers as they were considered to be a civil matter. Marriages were performed by Justices of the Peace as opposed to incumbents. They were deemed civil marriages between 1642 and 1660 but were accepted by the church so that children from the marriage were not deemed to be illegitimate.
1650 Christenings, marriages and burials were reinstated. The civil records that were previously kept were filed with the parish registers.
1653 The parish church was disorganised and many ministers fled. Some were able to hide their registers and other registers were destroyed. Cromwell’s government removed the ministers' right as the custodian of the registers, and the parish clerk was made a civil parish clerk recording only births, deaths and marriages in what became civil parishes.
1666 Many parish registers for areas of London were destroyed in the Great Fire - see Churches and the Great Fire of London article for more details.
1673 An affidavit from magistrates was required for burial in woollen shroud. If the word or abbreviation Affidavit appears against a burial record, it meant that the person was buried in wool. Exceptions were made for plague victims and the destitute poor. The Act was reinforced by a second Act in 1680 which required the affidavit from the incumbent.
1732/3 Many of the early parish registers were written in Latin until 1733 when English became universally adopted.
1752 The Gregorian Calendar changed the start of the new year from 25 March to 1 January. More details in a section in the article What are Parish Registers?
1754 The implementation of Hardwicke's Act which operated from 25 March 1754 required separate printed registers be maintained for marriages and banns. All marriages had to be solemnised in the Church of England but the Act did not apply to Quakers and Jews. The reason for this Act was to prevent clandestine marriages although there is evidence of such marriages existing until about 1770. At this point the bride, groom and witnesses to the ceremony were required to sign or mark the register entry. Marriages could not be performed in parochial chapelries unless special permission was obtained. The Act also required registers to be preserved for public use.
1783-1793 The Stamp Act of 1783 introduced a levy or duty of threepence for every Church of England register entry of birth, christening, marriage and burial. The incumbent or officiating minister collected the duty and was allowed to take a commission. Two years later the Act was extended to cover nonconformist birth/baptism and death/burial entries. This deterred people from having their children baptised during this period which is why, after the duty was lifted, it is not unusual to find group family baptisms.
1812 Rose’s Act meant that from the 1 January 1813 separate printed registers of both public and private baptisms, marriages (amended layout) and burials were to be kept by each parish. The incumbent was required to enter in the register particulars described in the schedules and to sign the same; this had to be done as soon as possible after the event and no later than seven days. The registers themselves were to be kept in a secure iron chest or safe within the usual residence of the incumbent or in a locked vestry.
The Act stipulated that if a child was illegitimate, only the mother’s name need be noted in the register, but some incumbents went to great lengths to also record the name of the supposed father. Some baptism registers were also printed with a column for the date of birth to be included.
1814 Burial in woollen Acts were repealed.
1837 With the introduction of the civil registration system in 1837, church marriage registers are now kept in duplicate. The registers were standardised in accordance with the requirements of legislation so both civil and ecclesiastical marriage registers were the same. The incumbent sent a quarterly copy of all marriage entries solemnised in the parish to the local superintendent registrar, who in turn sent them to the Registrar General. When the marriage registers were full, one copy was retained in the parish and the other was sent to the local registrar.
