{"id":27,"date":"2023-03-28T17:51:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T17:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/?page_id=27"},"modified":"2026-04-12T17:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T17:37:49","slug":"parish-register-transcriptions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp\/parish-register-transcriptions\/","title":{"rendered":"Parish register transcriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parish registers<\/strong> are the mainstay of English genealogical research.\u00a0 They vary hugely in their quality and style.\u00a0 Some are beautifully written by someone who clearly took pride in their records.\u00a0 Some look like an arthritic spider has fallen in the ink pot and then wandered off.\u00a0 Some are enormous, with hundreds of entries per year.\u00a0 Some are sparse with only an entry now and again.\u00a0 Some are full of information, others give the bare minimum – sometimes less than that from a genealogical point of view.<\/p>\n

Often in the older register the woman involved is barely acknowledged – Thomas Green married; Thomas son of Thomas Green baptised; wife of Thomas Green buried.\u00a0 We may never work out who she was, sadly.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they are very poignant – with whole families dying in quick succession, or birth followed quickly by burial time after time.\u00a0 It is odd feeling sorry for people who may have died hundreds of years ago.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you come across famous people, or recognisable events – like plague epidemics.<\/p>\n

The earliest registers date from 1538, when Thomas Cromwell (chief minister to Henry VIII) introduced them as part of the break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England.\u00a0 Most parishes don’t have records this far back.\u00a0 Many have them starting at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in 1558.\u00a0 Some parishes only have records from the mid 1700s, with the earlier records presumably lost.\u00a0 This can bring research to a grinding halt.<\/p>\n

Often there are gaps in the registers – either because no records were kept (especially during and after the Civil War in the mid and later 1600s), or because registers have been lost or damaged.\u00a0 For most of their time, the registers have been kept in a chest in the church and subject to the ravages of time, flood, fire and mice.\u00a0 Through the 20th century most were deposited for safekeeping at the county records offices.\u00a0 Many were filmed onto microfiche and microfilm in the 1970s and 1980s (usually by the Church of the Latter Day Saints).\u00a0 The quality of those images vary from very good to totally illegible.\u00a0 In more recent times, many records offices have begun to undertake the invaluable task of creating modern high quality colour digital images, and making them available online.\u00a0 I think this is an essential task to safeguard their future.<\/p>\n

Parish register transcriptions<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Essex<\/a><\/p>\n

Norfolk<\/a><\/p>\n

Suffolk<\/a><\/p>\n

Surrey<\/p>\n

Wiltshire<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

This is an ongoing project so more register transcripts will appear over time.\u00a0 All transcripts on this site have been transcribed by Julie Harold, unless otherwise stated.<\/p>\n

The registers themselves are a random selection of places picked for my own personal use.\u00a0 The transcripts are normally in date order, with odd out of order entries as they appear in the register.\u00a0 They are mostly for the pre-1812 registers, which tend to be harder for people to read, and are less often available online.<\/p>\n

All transcripts have been made using images of the original registers. These transcriptions are my personal interpretation, and accuracy is not guaranteed \u2013 all entries should be checked in the originals before you trust it. There will be mistakes, but hopefully not too many \u2013 please let me know if you find any and I will check and correct as needed.<\/p>\n

You should also be aware that there are genuine mistakes in the registers sometimes, made by whoever wrote the register. I have replicated what is in the original as much as possible. Typical abbreviations from the older writing have normally been expanded.
\nLatin names and odd spellings have been retained \u2013 it is useful to know the variations that were used.<\/p>\n

Not all available registers have been included for each parish – you should check on which registers are available with the relevant records office.<\/p>\n

I have in some instances provided links to other transcripts or useful pages for parishes.\u00a0 I take no responsibility for the quality or accuracy of any work not my own.\u00a0 Most parishes I have included are also in the FreeREG<\/a> database.\u00a0 They often also include many of the registers that I have not transcribed for those parishes, especially the post 1813 registers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I find this Cambridge University CERES site\u00a0<\/a>very useful with the older writing styles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parish registers are the mainstay of English genealogical research.\u00a0 They vary hugely in their quality and style.\u00a0 Some are beautifully written by someone who clearly took pride in their records.\u00a0 Some look like an arthritic spider has fallen in the ink pot and then wandered off.\u00a0 Some are enormous, with hundreds of entries per year.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":25,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27","page","type-page","status-publish"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2844,"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions\/2844"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jmh-genealogy.co.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}