Hello Mary English research is so much easier than Irish research! A lot more records have survived, more of them have been transcribed, a lot are available on-line and often (but not always) free, spelling is variable as you get further back but not so variable as it was in Ireland and the civil registration goes back to 1837. Most civil registration indexes are now on-line. http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl If you have a subscription to Ancestry or Find My past use that. Birth, marriage and death certificates back to 1837 are available from the General Register Office http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/order_certificates/certificare_fees/ birth--marriage--and--death--certificates.asp They cost 7GBP each if you supply the reference from the FreeBMD website and they take Visa etc. No need to go through one of the agencies which get certificates for you for an additional fee. You can order from the local register office, if you know which one it is, they hold the original registers, the GRO only have contemporary transcripts of those, but the local offices don't always accept plastic, so from overseas it's probably better to order from the GRO. In England you don't generally get baptism certificates. Most parish registers have been deposited at the appropriate County Record Office/Archives and most of them have filmed their Parish Registers so all you need is either a print-out from the film or perhaps just the info. http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives. Remember that Bristol is a large city, it will help if you can narrow it down to the area or parish. A lot of English parish register films are available from the LDS http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp but not all the bishops will allow the LDS to have copies of their registers. Unfortunately the Bristol registers may be in this group as there's no likely David Townsend baptism on the IGI. http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp I've had a quick look at Ancestry/FreeBMD and found a David Townsend born Jan/Feb/Mar 1841 Keynsham Registration District, Volume XI, page 131 Was that your man? Can't find him on the 1841 or 1851 census - unless the family moved away from Keynsham/Bristol when he was a small baby. A couple of other websites to look at are: http://www.ukgenealogy.co.uk/gls.htm http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/GLS/ Hope that helps Brenda On 4 Jan 2009, at 02:37, Mary Ellen Chambers wrote: > I have finally found my g g grandparents particulars for the Bristol > area of England.  My g grandfather married my g grandmother in > Limerick City County Limerick in 1862.  It is his parents of > Welsh/English nationality who lived in Bristol:  David and Eliza > TOWNSEND.. >   > How would one go about getting Civil birth, marriage and death > certificates for that area.  Also, how would one locate Protestant > churches who were established in 1840 for his baptism certificate. >   > Appreciate any info or guidance for England of the 19th century > records.  Realize this is an Irish list, but many of us have links to > England either via emigration to or emigration from to Ireland. >   > Brenda in Allhallows, Kent http://paternoster.orpheusweb.co.uk/index.html