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Parish Records
England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland: Parish Records
A collection of parish records in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland from the 1500s to the 1800s.
These databases are a collection of historical parish registers from the countries of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. More than 15 million names in this collection can range in date from the early 1500s to the mid- to late-1800s. Some non-parish records may be included from as early as the twelfth century. Parish records--primarily christenings, marriages, and burials--provide the best source of vital record information in the centuries before civil registration. The records include baptisms/christenings, burials, marriages, gravestone inscriptions, obituaries, tax lists, wills, and other miscellaneous types of records. Also included are some records from non-conformist churches. All of the data was converted as it was originally presented in various published registers and books. For this reason, you will find interesting phonetic spellings and large descriptive tables of contents.
These records are a finding aid that help researchers locate an ancestor in a particular time and place in history. With a location and an approximate date, the microfilm number of pertinent corroborating records can often be found on the LDS Church's FamilySearch site (www.familysearch.org) in the Family History Library Catalog. The Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA has the largest collection.
Parish Locator Program
This UK Parish Locator program is freeware and will run on Windows 95/98, ME, NT, Windows 2000 & Windows XP. The Database is available to users of other operating systems as a CSV file (see Download section below). The Windows program enables you to locate any one of over 15,000 UK parishes. It will produce a list of parishes in any County or a list of parishes within a given radius of any other parish and also allows Import and Export via "csv" files. It is possible to plot the location of parishes to either the screen or the printer. This version also includes a number of corrections to errors found by users. Download Page
Additional Information
Parish and Non Conformist Records
by Phil Westwood
Few Parish Registers survive before 1597 and some of the early Registers are written in Latin. Parish Registers may be viewed in different forms. County Record Offices will be able to tell you whether there are indexes to the Parish Records you are interested in and will check and photocopy original entries for you inexpensively . Non Conformist Registers become more widespread after 1780 as Nonconformity grew.
The British CDs: Checking Out English Parish Registers
by Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA
If you follow an International Genealogical Index entry through to the microfilm copy of the register, and if you habitually read further than simply the relevant entries for your ancestors, then you may have come across some of the fascinating details noted by long dead ministers and parish clerks. The Yorkshire (East Riding) CD is a good one for demonstrating what turns up in parish registers.
Review of Ancestry.com's English Parish Records CDs
by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, CGRS, CGL
Ancestry.com has recently produced twenty-six CDs containing English, Scottish, and some Irish parish records covering the time period 1538-1837. I've taken a look at two of these CDs and am impressed with what Ancestry has put together.
The Parish Constable
by Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA
Before the Rural Constabulary Act of 1839 there were no police forces in the modern sense; policing was a local matter. Unlike some other offices, that of constable did not have a property qualification and every householder was liable to serve.
Two Types of Parish
by George G. Morgan
Yes, there are two types of parishes, and hopefully you won't be confused by them, especially when researching your Louisiana families. Let's begin with a definition. A parish, simply defined, is an administrative area. A parish can also be a governmental administrative unit, such as is used in Ireland and in the State of Louisiana in the U.S. Using Louisiana as our primary example, let it suffice to say that the parish there is comparable to a county in other states.
See also: Live Roots Genealogy Search