On 14/11/15 10:04, Richard Smith wrote: > 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. > > Michelmersh, Hants, the parish I mentioned at the start of this thread > does have a "Commonwealth gap": there are no baptisms recorded between > Sept 1653 and Oct 1660. But of the seven neighbouring parishes, four > continued recording, two more don't have registers for the period at > all, and only one has a "Commonwealth gap". The next three parishes to > the west, an area of particular relevance to this family, all continued > recording too. In Almondbury & Kirkburton there are new Commonwealth registers but they were simply continued as PRs so there's no gap. Almondbury does have an earlier gap in that the vicar died early in the war & no new one was appointed during the hostilities. The parish was served by temporary priests in the interim and there are about 3 entries. Kirkburton's records weren't interrupted despite the incursion of an armed band who invaded and dragged the vicar off to Manchester where he died "of ill usage". There seems to have been a good deal of variation from parish to parish. -- Hotmail is my spam bin. Real address is ianng at austonley org uk