When gathering conventional Family Tree data such as ancestor’s names, family relationships and life event dates, the experienced genealogy researcher will also be recording residency addresses for each person on the tree’s branches. This is not just done to provide historical information about the family’s travels throughout the ages, but also to compile a list of further research references.
The residence of an ancestor coupled with his/her practising religion gives a useful link to a family’s probable place of worship in the surrounding area. If identified correctly, the local church can reveal many more records of the life and times of its congregation regardless of whether the church buildings remain standing in the present day or operate as per their original function.
Most places of worship kept some kind of register recording the key religious ceremony events in each parishioner’s lifetime. In Christian churches, the main events recorded were baptisms and weddings, followed to a lesser degree of consistent record-keeping by burials. The format for church registers was highly irregular centuries ago, but the movement of clerics from parish to parish seems to have led to a natural standardisation of typical facts recorded. In later times, the heads of dioceses decreed what information must be recorded in order to formalise a particular ceremony in accordance with a denomination’s religious rulings.
As well as the uncertainty of what a parish record might reveal, the main problem for a Family History researcher is locating where the records of interest are kept. Where the church is still in existence, the obvious way forward is to approach a member of the current clergy with your enquiry. If the original registers are in the local custody of the church – and the clergyman is amenable to research enquiries – and you can attend regardless of appointment time and location, then you can experience the joy or disappointment of unique ancestry detection in person. In reality, it is very rarely as straightforward as this.
Any combination of country, religious denomination and era may determine that parish records no longer exist or are held at an administrative church or civil HQ. For example, in Ireland, Roman Catholic parish registers tend to commence in the mid-19th century and they are retained at surviving churches with micro-filmed copies accessible in the capital city. Church of Ireland registers exist from the 18th century (maybe even earlier in city parishes) but the custodians might be Civil Archivists, the Representative Church Body or to a lesser degree, the present day equivalent local parish church.
Other countries, such as the UK and USA, tend to follow the pattern that original registers of ancient church records are retained at the principal or relevant church of the modern-day parish or region. In the UK, comprehensive Anglican records exist in some places dating back to the Middle Ages. There are several worldwide projects underway wherein searchable databases of each religion’s registers are being constructed; it will be some time before these worthy tasks are completed. Irish Ancestry Research offers to look into each individual Ancestor Query with regards to identifying Parish Record research possibilities.
The world’s most advanced and largest collection of church register information is to be found in the safe keeping of the Mormons (or Church of the Latter Day Saints). The LDS database, as it is known, is always worth checking out [http://www.familysearch.org] but a professional genealogist is obliged to offer a few words of caution. The validity of many LDS records are questionable on the basis that worldwide contributors do not accurately record their source material. In saying that, LDS data may provide an ancestral lead which is well worth investigating further.
Be aware that the information recorded in Parish Records can sometimes be inaccurate with regard to the spelling of names and places. This often happened where the registrar and his parishioners were only semi-literate.
