Can anyone enlighten me on the new parish registers for the London area Ancestry has? Are these Anglican records only or include other denominations? I am beginning to think the ancestors I am looking for may have been Catholic. Thanks Carole Brett

Hi Carole The clue is in the name - *parish* registers refer to the registers of the Established Church (i.e. the Church of England) :-) You won't find any registers of Roman Catholic churches (which are officially termed "missions" not "parishes") in the collection, and they are very hard to research (try http://www.catholic-library.org.uk/index.html for information), though between 1754 and 1837 your Catholic ancestors would have had to marry in the Church of England. This applied to the protestant non-conformists too (though not to Quakers or Jews who were allowed to maintain their own records, on the basis that these were accepted to be very well regulated). So every marriage, if it took place in London, should be there until 1837, unless it took place within the many large churches in the City of Westminster (which covers a large part of the central area). These registers are held by the Westminster Archive Centre, not the LMA or the Guildhall Library, so are not part of the project in question. After 1837, you will only find marriages which took place in C of E churches. For the rest (Catholic, non-conformist, Jewish etc), and anything in Westminster, you are best off relying on marriage certificates via the civil registration system. As for baptisms, these were always optional, so your ancestors may just not have been very godly! If they were non-conformists (including Quakers), try the non-parochial registers available via subscription of pay-per-view at www.thegenealogist.co.uk. Hope this helps Caroline > > Can anyone enlighten me on the new parish registers for the London area > Ancestry has? Are these Anglican records only or include other > denominations? > > > > I am beginning to think the ancestors I am looking for may have been > Catholic. > > > > Thanks > > > > Carole Brett > > *************************************** > Send your List messages using **PLAIN TEXT** and always **TRIM AWAY** > superfluous old messages in replies. > > List Admin can be contacted at: Eng-Surrey-admin@rootsweb.com. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-SURREY- > request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message