Church records are one of our most important sources of information about the births, marriages and deaths of our ancestors. And before the 19th century, they are our only source of information on births, marriages and deaths—because churches were keeping records of important life events long before governments were.
In 1538, Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Vicar General, issued an order that each parish in England keep a record of every baptism, marriage and burial it performed.
The UK government, on the other hand, did not start keeping vital records until 1837. (To search indexes of most of the UK government’s vital records since 1837, click here.)
Church records continued to be kept concurrently with government records, so they can also provide a good alternative source to consult for your family through the 1800s and 1900s. You may find a church record where no government record exists, and vice versa. Or one may compliment, add to or validate the other.
And now you can view a new collection of London parish registers on Ancestry.com that includes millions of baptism, marriage and death/burial records from more than 1,000 parishes in the greater London area—spanning the years 1538 to 1980.
You can
• Browse through images of original records from 1538 through 1812 by parish and year.
• Search baptism and burial records from 1813 through the 1900s by name, parish or year.
• Search marriage records from 1754 through the 1900s by name, parish or year.
Standard marriage parish form, 1900s. Parishes began using standardized forms after 1812.
Standard parish form, 1700s. Information pre-1812 is recorded differently depending on the parish and year.
Besides helping you locate your English ancestors, this extensive collection of records also showcases some fascinating pieces of London’s history, including epidemics, marriage trends and important life events of celebrities.
1. The Bubonic Plague and the Great Fire of London
A second Bubonic Plague in London in 1665 and 1666 killed 10,000 Londoners—20% of London’s population at the time. All the individuals on this 1665 parish record were killed during the plague, as indicated in the far right column.
Londoners believed that “miasma,” or bad smells, caused the disease, so many people carried herbs for protection. Other people applied the tail feathers of live chickens to boils; or they wore luck charms, dead toads and powdered “unicorn horns.” Others believed smoking tobacco would prevent infection. There are even a few reported instances of children being whipped in school for not smoking.
The “Great Fire of London” in 1666 destroyed more than 13,000 houses, but is now thought to have curbed the spread of the Bubonic Plague since it killed off thousands of London rats and fleas, which were the true carriers of the disease.
2. Marriage Trends
Yet another interesting dimension of social life in London that is covered in these records is the evolution of the marriage age, along with the numbers of marriages that increased during certain key points in London’s history.
A note on this 1864 parish record reads, “The parties presented themselves to be married without the consent of their parents and being minors were refused.”
For many years the Church of England accepted marriages of girls as young as 12 and boys as young as 14, so long as there was parental consent. In 1763, the minimum age for marriage in the Church of England was set at 16, although you still had to get consent.
Another item of interest related to marriage is that you can see a considerable increase in recorded marriages in this collection after 1754, when Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act did away with common-law marriages and mandated that everyone had to be married in a church.
You can also see a considerable increase in marriages during the first year of WWI—marriages in the collection went from 63,540 in 1914 to more than 84,120 in 1915, a 32% increase. The believed cause is that couples wanted to marry before men went off to fight in the war.
3. Celebrities
You’ll find a number of famous people in this collection of London parish records. Below is a baptism record for Joseph Allerton Cowell—the great-grandfather of Simon Cowell, of American Idol fame, as well as the marriage record of Thomas Hardy, author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles. He was married to Florence Dugdee at St. Andrew, Enfield, on February 10, 1914.
Baptism record for Simon Cowell's great-grandfather.
Marriage record for Thomas Hardy.
With more than 400 years of London church records now at your fingertips, we hope you will have more success than ever at discovering the story of your ancestors’ lives—or, at the very least—enjoy a walk back through the pages of London’s varied and interesting history.
Search the London parish registers>
Search indexes for all the UK registers available on our site>
