A parish register, alternatively known as a parochial register, is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church of an ecclesiastical parish in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and often names of the parents), marriages (with the names of both partners), and burials (within the parish) are recorded. Along with these events, church goods, the parish's business, and notes on various happenings in the parish may also be recorded. These records exist in England because they were required by law and for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage. The information recorded in registers was also considered significant for secular governments’ own recordkeeping, resulting in the churches supplying the state with copies of all parish register entries. A good register permits the family structure of the community to be reconstituted as far back as the sixteenth century. Thus, these records can be distilled for the definitive study of the history of several nations’ populations. They also provide insight into the lives and interrelationships of parishioners. Historically, a parish's churchwarden was responsible for certifying the parish register and submitting it alongside the churchwarden's accounts for annual examination by the bishop.
History
England and Wales
Parish registers were formally introduced in England and Wales on 5 September 1538 shortly after the formal split with Rome in 1534, when Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII, acting as his Vicar General, issued an injunction requiring that in each parish of the Church of England registers of all baptisms, marriages, and burials be kept. Before this, a few Roman Catholic religious houses and parish priests had kept informal notes on the baptisms, marriages, and burials of the prominent local families and obituaries of holy persons. This injunction was addressed to the rector or vicar of every church parish in England. By contrast, surviving Roman Catholic communities were discouraged from keeping similar records, as they needed their names to remain hidden in a country now hostile to the Church of Rome. Cromwell's order had, however, nothing to do with religious doctrine or the papacy, but rather indicated the desire of the central government to have better knowledge of the population of the country. Church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has suggested that the measure may have been introduced as a means to identify infiltration into England by members of the outlawed Anabaptist sects: their adherents did not baptise infants, due to their doctrine that only active believers could be baptised, thereby excluding "dumb" or "unmindful" children. The book was to be kept in a "sure coffer" with two locks and keys, one held by the parish priest and one by the churchwardens. A fine of 3 shillings, 4 pence was to be levied for failure to comply. Many parishes ignored this order as it was commonly thought that it presaged a further tax. Finally, in 1597, both Queen Elizabeth I and the Church of England's Convocation reaffirmed the injunction, adding that the registers were of permagnus usus and must be kept in books of parchment leaves. They mandated the keeping of duplicate registers or bishop's transcripts, ordering that annually copies of every parish's records of baptism, marriage, and burial be sent into the diocesan bishop's registrar. These records survive sporadically from this date and may make up for some gaps in the regular parish register due to war, carelessness, and loss due to other causes (fire, etc.). At the same time, all previous parish records (most found in a less durable form) had to be copied into the new sturdier books. The parish clerk was paid to copy the old records into a new parchment book in order to keep the record up to date. During the English Civil War (1643–1647), and in the following periods of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, when the Church of England was suppressed and bishops abolished and replaced by Calvinist ministers under the Directory, records were poorly kept and many went missing after being destroyed (bored by beetles, chewed by rats or rendered illegible by damp) or hidden by the displaced Anglican clergy. Instead, for a brief period a civil official, confusingly also called the parish register, was elected locally and approved by two local justices of the peace. Often a semi-literal layman of Puritan hue, he was charged with keeping civil records of birth, marriage, and death in each parish for the balance of the Interregnum, and, in some cases, he even wrote his records into the old parish register. In the course of this passage from Anglican safekeeping to civil hands, however, many records were lost. The old format was re-adopted by the restored Church of England when the monarchy was restored in May 1660. Centuries later, this parsimony and neglect was belatedly remedied by depositing the surviving registers in county record offices where they were better safeguarded, conserved, and made accessible mostly on microfilm as that technology became available. On the other hand, the accurate parish registers of New France were rarely damaged by external events such as war, revolution, and fire. Thus, 300,000 entries were available for the time period 1621 to 1760. In England, the Parochial Registers Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3. c. 146), an "Act for the better regulating and preserving Parish and other Registers of Birth, Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, in England" was passed It stated that "amending the Manner and Form of keeping and of preserving Registers of Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials of His Majesty's Subjects in the several Parishes and Places in England, will greatly facilitate the Proof of Pedigrees of Persons claiming to be entitled to Real or Personal Estates, and otherwise of great public Benefit and Advantage". Separate, printed registers were to be supplied by the King's Printer, and used for baptisms, marriages and burials. These are more or less unchanged to this day.
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