Genealogy Chat

Hi,
Could someone tell me exactly what would be written on parish records (baptisms, marriages, burials)?
Eg: on marriages is it just the couples name or are parents names/place of birth etc recorded too?
Thankyou

Usually, I find there will be witnesses on a marriage record, plus the names of the couple (and sometimes whether they wrote their names or made an X instead) and the name of the priest/minister who married them.

Some baptisms - not all, but quite a few - have a birth date on as well as the baptism date. Some early Catholic ones I've seen have the residence of the parents and also include the names of godparents (with their addresses) but later ones I've seen just have the child's name, baptism and birth date, parents and godparents.

Anglican ones (baptisms) often have name of child, parents, birth and baptism dates, address of parents and the father's occupation.

Burials can be variable - sometimes you just get a name and a burial date, sometimes you also get the age of the deceased and their address or village/town of residence. If it's a child you might get parents, if a woman you get her husband's name (although I've rarely seen a dead man's wife named). Occasionally you get a cause of death - "accidentally drowned" or "childbed" or "measles" etc.

Hi Kate,
Thanks very much for that.