# Parish Records in England and Wales: Find Registers Online

Source: https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/parish-registers-england-wales/
Last updated: 2026-09-29
Summary: Church of England parish records for England and Wales from 1538: what baptism, marriage and burial registers show and where to search them free online.
Publisher: The Polish Genealogist (professional Polish genealogy research, polishgenealogist.co.uk)

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Church of England parish registers record baptisms, marriages and burials in England and Wales from 1538. Before civil registration began on 1 July 1837 they are the main source for almost every family line, and they carry on after 1837 alongside the civil certificates. Most original registers are now in county or diocesan record offices, and many can be searched online: free on FamilySearch and FreeREG, and by subscription on Ancestry, Findmypast and similar sites.

The amount of detail depends on the date. An entry from the 1600s may give only a name and a date, while a marriage after 1837 names both fathers and their occupations. Knowing what each period recorded tells you what to expect and where the gaps are.

> **Found a Polish-born ancestor in an English parish register?** We follow the line back into Polish parish and civil records and explain what we find in English. [View research packages](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/family-history-research/)

### What parish registers are and when they start

A mandate issued by Thomas Cromwell in September 1538 ordered every parish to record each baptism, marriage and burial. Few registers survive from those first years. An order of 1597 required registers to be kept in parchment books and earlier paper entries to be copied into them, but only entries from the start of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1558 had to be copied, so many parishes’ surviving registers begin in 1558 rather than 1538.

The same order introduced bishop’s transcripts: an annual copy of each year’s entries sent to the bishop’s or archdeacon’s registry. These copies are a separate source and can fill gaps where the parish’s own book is lost or damaged.

### What each entry contains, period by period

Before 1754 a marriage could legally be made without a church ceremony, and clandestine weddings were common. Hardwicke’s Act of 1753, in force from 25 March 1754, required marriages to follow banns or a licence and to be recorded in a set format. Quakers and Jews were exempt. From 1754 until 1837 other nonconformists and Roman Catholics were expected to marry in the Church of England, so their marriages usually appear in the Anglican register.

After 1837 each church kept two copies of the marriage register. One went to the local registrar when complete; the church’s copy normally ends up in the record office, where you can often see the entry without buying a certificate. Baptisms and burials continued in the 1813 format and are useful for people born after 1837 whose birth was never registered.

#### Banns and licences

Banns were read in church on three Sundays before a wedding, and many parishes kept a separate banns book. A banns entry can show where each party lived, which matters when the couple came from different parishes. If a couple married by licence, the diocesan allegation or bond may give ages, occupations and the name of the church; these are usually held with the diocesan records in the same record office.

### Gaps and pitfalls

- **Civil War and Commonwealth, 1642 to 1660:** registers were often neglected. From 1653 births were recorded by an elected civil ‘Parish Register’ and from 1654 marriages took place before justices of the peace. Coverage for these years is patchy, and some children born in the 1650s were baptised after 1660.

- **Baptism is not birth:** a baptism can be weeks or years after the birth.

- **Burial ages:** the age at burial, given only from 1813 as a rule, was reported by the family and is often a rounded guess.

- **Latin:** many earlier registers are in Latin, with Christian names in Latin forms such as Johannes (John), Gulielmus (William) or Maria (Mary). The standard words are few: *baptizatus* (baptised), *nupti* or *matrimonium* (married), *sepultus* (buried), *filius/filia* (son/daughter).

- **Handwriting:** secretary hand is common in the 1500s and 1600s. The National Archives has free [guidance and tutorials on reading old documents](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/reading-old-documents/).

- **Transcription errors:** indexes are made by people reading difficult hands. Always check the image or the original before you rely on an entry.

### Where the registers are now

Under the Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978, registers whose latest entry is 100 years old or more must be deposited in the diocesan record office unless the parish meets the conditions to keep them. In practice the diocesan record office is usually the county record office, so start with the archive service for the county where the parish lay. Bishop’s transcripts are normally held there too, with the diocese’s other records.

For Wales, the original parish registers are also in the county archives. The National Library of Wales holds the bishop’s transcripts of the Welsh dioceses, which run from 1598 to about 1860, and offers microfilm and free on-site access to the online editions of Welsh registers.

To find the right parish, The National Archives suggests the FamilySearch map of English jurisdictions in 1851, or The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers.

### Searching parish registers online

#### Free options

- **[FamilySearch](https://www.familysearch.org/):** free, with a free account. It holds indexes to millions of English baptisms and marriages, and images for some counties. Coverage is uneven, so treat a nil result as ‘not indexed here’, not ‘not there’.

- **[FreeREG](https://www.freereg.org.uk/):** free volunteer transcriptions of parish and some nonconformist registers, now tens of millions of entries. The project describes itself as a finding tool; check its coverage pages for your parish and years.

- **Record office catalogues and family history societies:** many county archives list their registers online, and local societies publish indexes and transcripts.

#### Subscription sites

Ancestry and Findmypast each hold filmed registers for a number of counties under agreements with local archives, and TheGenealogist carries the non-parochial registers from The National Archives. Which site has which county changes over time, so check the record office’s own website: it usually says where its registers are online and often gives free access to them in its search room.

### A step-by-step search

1. Work back from what you know: a post-1837 certificate or an 1841 or 1851 census entry gives an age and, from 1851, a parish of birth.

2. Search FamilySearch and FreeREG for the baptism, allowing a few years either side and spelling variants.

3. Find the record office that holds that parish and check which years survive and where they are online.

4. View the image of every entry you use, and note the register, page and entry number.

5. Search the neighbouring parishes when an entry is missing, then the bishop’s transcripts for the same years.

6. Look for siblings’ baptisms and the parents’ marriage in the same parish to confirm you have the right family.

An illustrative example: a census says a labourer was born about 1805 in a Norfolk village. FreeREG shows two boys of that name baptised there in 1803 and 1806. The 1813-format burial register records one of them buried aged four, which leaves the other as the likely ancestor, confirmed by his marriage in 1828 in the same church.

### Nonconformist and Roman Catholic registers

Families outside the Church of England often kept their own registers. When civil registration began, the General Register Office collected many of them, and more in 1857. They are now at The National Archives in series RG 4 (registers of births, baptisms, deaths, burials and marriages), RG 5 (birth certificates from Dr Williams’s Library and the Wesleyan Methodist registry), RG 6 (Quakers), RG 7 (Fleet and other clandestine marriages) and RG 8. They are searchable online on TheGenealogist.

Very few Roman Catholic registers were surrendered: The National Archives lists 77 in RG 4, mostly from northern counties. Most Catholic registers stayed with the parish priest or went to diocesan archives, and some priests treated them as personal property, so one register can cover several places. The Catholic Record Society has published many of them. Before 1754 and after 1837 a Catholic family’s events may appear only in these registers.

### Polish ancestors in English and Welsh parish registers

Few Poles lived in Britain before 1837, but some exiles came after the rising of 1830 to 1831, and pastoral care for Polish refugees in London dates from 1832. The Polish Catholic Mission for England and Wales was set up in 1894, and after the Second World War it grew with the arrival of Polish soldiers, their families and later workers.

A Polish Catholic usually used a Roman Catholic church rather than the Anglican one, and after 1945 many used the chapels and parishes of the Polish Catholic Mission, including those serving the [resettlement camps and hostels](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/polish-britain/polish-resettlement-camps-hostels/). These sacramental registers are generally kept by the parish that created them. The Mission’s archive in London holds papers from its local centres and material of the Polish military chaplaincy, including metrical records; access for family historians should be confirmed with the archive directly.

A Polish-born man marrying an English bride often married in her parish church, so the Anglican register can still matter. Look for:

- a father’s name and occupation in a marriage entry after 1837, often the only written clue to the Polish generation above

- a first name translated or spelt as the clerk heard it (Jan as John, Wojciech as Albert) and a surname written phonetically; see [anglicised Polish surnames](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/polish-britain/anglicised-polish-surnames/)

- a place of birth or ‘native of Poland’ in Catholic registers, which often also name godparents and the mother’s maiden name

The next step is the Polish parish. A father’s name, an approximate birth year and a village name from a British source are enough to identify the parish in Poland; our guide to [finding the Polish parish for a village](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/vital-records/vital-records-find-polish-parish-village/) explains how, and [Polish church records](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/vital-records/polish-church-records/) explains what the baptism and marriage entries there will show.

### Official sources

- [The National Archives: Births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/birth-marriage-death-england-and-wales/)

- [The National Archives: Nonconformist and non-parish births, marriages and deaths 1567-1969](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/nonconformist-non-parish-births-marriages-deaths-1567-1969/)

- [The National Archives: Catholics](https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/catholics/)

- [legislation.gov.uk: Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978, section 10](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukcm/1978/2/section/10)

- [National Library of Wales: Church in Wales records](https://www.library.wales/catalogues-searching/help-to-search/family-history-help/records/church-in-wales-records/)

- [FamilySearch Research Wiki: England church records](https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Church_Records)

- [FreeREG](https://www.freereg.org.uk/)

### Related guides

- [Birth, marriage and death certificates in England and Wales](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/birth-marriage-death-certificates-england-wales/)

- [Searching the GRO index and FreeBMD](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/gro-index-freebmd-search/)

- [UK census records and the 1939 Register](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/uk-census-records-and-1939-register/)

- [Polish church records](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/vital-records/polish-church-records/)

- [Workhouse and Poor Law records](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/uk-records/workhouse-poor-law-records/)

> **Research service:** Traced the family back to a Polish-born ancestor? · 10, 20 or 30 hours of research for one family line · [View research packages](https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/family-history-research/)

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Research help: The Polish Genealogist researches Polish family history, military service and citizenship evidence in Polish, British and international archives, with reports in English. Services and prices: https://www.polishgenealogist.co.uk/services/