> On 14/11/15 09:41, Ian Goddard wrote: > > > During the Commonwealth period (that's Cromwell's Commonwealth) the > > church was no longer responsible for maintaining registers. The early > > registers - where they've survived at all, end in 1653. > > Although the churches no longer had a legal obligation to maintain > registers, that doesn't mean they all stopped doing so. In this > particular corner of Hampshire, most continued. You can get lucky. What this probably means is that the 1653 register was not destroyed in 1660. The registers were continued, but by a person other than the clergyman. In some cases, the parish clerk was chosen as 'Register' because he was about the only person who could write and wasn't scared by the idea of compiling an official document. The parish where I live started a new register in 1653, and this was continued in 1660, though the entries became sparser, since many folk were presbyterian or dissenters of some shade. (The earlier register/s were destroyed in a fire in the clerk's house, this one was saved and continued. In 1689 a separate register for burials was started and this was burnt in another fire sixty years later (it's a local sport?) In some parishes, the 1653 register was destroyed or the pages torn out in 1660. Sometimes there are group entries from one family at a time - for those people able to keep familiy bibles, so under representative of labourers or evn of farmers who had been strong 'Oliver's men' and had to move to avoid retribution in a predominantly royalist parish (which ours was not). In two other parishes, the restored parson was keen enough to collect and send to the Bishop in 1661 the 'missing' BTs for ?1656 or 57-60. There were not many so conscientious. EVE Author of The McLaughlin Guides for Family Historians Secretary, Bucks Genealogical Society