PARISH RECORDS

Registers

Prior to 1837, when civil registration started, the parish register is the main source of genealogical information for births, marriages and deaths.

The register, introduced in 1598 on instructions of the Provincial Constitution of Canterbury. Prior to this date records were kept on loose sheets of paper. The instruction required them to keep entries in a fixed format in a bound ledger made from parchment. It also required them to transcribe all entries from 1538 into the new registers, but unfortunately the instruction was not understood by all as it told them to pay particular attention to the entries from 1558, the year of accession of Queen Elizabeth I, as a result many ministers simply copied the entries from 1558 onwards and the earlier paper copies were lost. So the records in the volumes for 1538-1598 are in fact transcriptions from another record and therefore subject to the usual transcription errors. Even though the instruction in 1598 laid down a format for recording events, many ministers fortunately continued to record more than the minimum required. Some ministers, possibly those in the larger parishes would use separate ledgers for each activity, some would have all activities in the same register. 

In Cumbria there are only four Parishes with records dating back to 1538, these are Kirkby Lonsdale, Lazonby, Morland and St. Bees. A few other parishes have records dating from around 1558 and later, but the large majority of the parish records still available today start in the 1600's.

There follows more detailed notes for Baptisms, Marriages and Burials

Baptisms
These may not take place in the year of birth and can be several years later. You may from time to time find baptisms of more than one child in a family at the same time. This does not mean they were born at the same time, as sometimes families would wait to baptise several children together.

    In the Carlisle Diocese from 1786 until 1812 the baptism record would normally also include the mothers maiden name.

 Marriages
The marriage act of 1753 required marriages to be kept in a separate volume and the Parochial Registers Act of 1812 required Baptisms and Burials to be in separate registers. From 1823 it was required to keep Banns in a separate register, prior to this they will often be in the Marriages Register. From 1754 (sometimes earlier) the parish of residence was recorded, note that this is the parish of residence at the time of the marriage and it is not necessarily the birth parish.

Banns were recorded whether a marriage took place or not, these may be recorded in the same register as the marriages or in some cases a separate register. From 1823 banns should be in separate registers. The existence of banns does not necessarily mean a marriage took place.

Burials
From 1853 many churches, particularly urban ones, stopped churchyard graves and burials transferred to the local authority cemeteries. At this time church burial registers stopped. The local authority cemeteries in Cumbria are at Alston, Appleby, Barrow-in-Furness, Beckermet, Bewcastle, Bowness, Brampton, Carlisle, Cockermouth, Crosscanonby, Dalton-in-Furness, Garrigill, Grange, Grasmere, Holme Eden, Ireleth, Kendal, Maryport, Millom, Nenthead, Nether Wasdale, Penrith, Sedbergh, Silloth, Ulverston, Whitehaven, Wigton, Windermere, Workington.

Bishops Transcripts

The annual returns sent in to the Bishop by each parish. An instruction went out to them in 1598 and they responded in different ways, some providing more information than others. It was not until 1813 that a standard form was supplied and from then the information is consistent. Although some of these returns continue well into the 19th century, they started to phase out after the introduction of Civil Registration.

Non-Conformist Records

If you can not find your ancestors in Parish Records it is worth considering that they could have been non-conformists. Prior to Henry VIII establishing the Protestant Church in 1534 the Catholic Church was the established church in England and Wales. After 1534 non-conformists were those Christians who did not follow the Church of England, which includes such groups as Catholics, Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, Hugenots and Mormons. Jews are sometimes considered in the same group, though in fact they are not Christans and after thier expulsion from England in around 1290 there were very few until they started to return in the late 1600's. Non-conformism was much more prevalent in Cumbria than in southern counties. But because of persecution Catholic Records from around 1559 to 1778 are incomplete. From 1742, non-conformists were able to register baptisms in the General Register of Births of Children of Protestant Dissenters at Dr Williams's library in London. It has about 50,000 births. Methodists kept records from 1779.The 1753 Marriage Act gave Quakers and Jews the right to hold their own ceremonies. Prior to that 'clandestine' marriages were tolerated but perhaps not recorded.

Finding Records

Most Cumbrian records and surrogate copies are held by the Cumbria Archive Service.
Registers for Cumberland will normally be at Carlisle or Whitehaven, for Westmorland in Kendal, and for Furness in Barrow.
Bishops Transcripts are available from the various records centres, those for the Diocese of Carlisle are held at Carlisle and details can be located in the online catalogue CASCAT. Those for the Furness Area are held at Barrow. Those for Alston are held at Durham and for Sedbergh at Leeds.

The full listing of what records are available, including Bishops Transcripts and the years available and where the record is kept in a downloadable Parish Registers List. The Archive Service provides a clickable list of parishes and what records are available for each parish, this includes registers and other parish documents.

These details are also available in the parish register pages on this website accessible from the interactive Parish Map

A high percentage of Cumbrian parish records have been indexed on the International Genealogical Index (IGI) and are freely available on FamilySearch.