Hello Charani, Your reply to my posting today. First I must apologise fo my mistake in typing CMB. It should have been as you stated BMD. As to the 2nd.part of your answer it is not nor was the custom to make entries into the registers some time after the events took place nor was it the custom to write details on scraps of paper and enter later. It possibly did happen occasionally and possibly for a good reason. But why should it have been anything but rare? After all, almost all the events took place in church and that is where the registers are kept. So why not enter the details once only and at the time of the event? In the case of marriage the register entry is in fact the certificate and has as such to be signed by bride and groom ,witnesses and the officiating clergy. Previous to the 1837 legal requirement to record birth, marriage and death, the only standard document to be found is the record of baptism, marriage and burial. That is a legal requirement placed on the Anglican Church, (C of E) and of no other organisation although some other religious organisations did voluntarily keep such records. For over 20 years I have been reading parish registers both here in the West Country and particularly in Kent. This has involved many visits to record offices including The National Archives and it is from this experience that I have given this opinion. Kind regards, Dennis Bramble. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charani" <charani.b@gmail.com> To: "dennis bramble" <d.bramble@mypostoffice.co.uk> Cc: <KENT-ENG@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:25 PM Subject: Re: [KENT-ENG] RECORDS > dennis bramble wrote: >> Your best chance is to find the parish register of the parish where >> Leonard was buried.These parish registers record the b.m.d's of the >> parish where each event occourred. > > The parish registers have a record of the CMBs for the parish, not the > BMDs although some baptism (christening) registers do give the date of > birth and some burial registers do give a cause of death but not usually > the date of death. The additional information wasn't required by law and > is only included at the whim of the incumbent or parish clerk or whoever > made up the registers. > > The registers weren't made up at the time of the event but were done once > a week, once a month or even one a quarter or longer. In the interim, the > baptisms and burials were noted on scraps of paper or, worse, committed to > memory with the result that some events were missed out of the registers > altogether. For that reason it's always worth checking the Bishop's > Transcripts (BTs)as well because sometimes an event missed from the > registers is included in the BTs. > > -- > Charani (UK) (who's currently working in a record office) > OPC for Walton, Greinton and Clutton, SOM > Asst OPC for Ashcott and Shapwick, SOM > http://wsom-opc.org.uk > > ______________________________________________ This email has been > scanned by Netintelligence http://www.netintelligence.com/email > ______________________________________________ This email has been scanned by Netintelligence http://www.netintelligence.com/email

Dennis, I have to respectfully disagree with you there - maybe you have been lucky in the registers you have been reading. I have been browsing through images on the Ancestry/LMA/Guildhall database (not all from the same church, either) and it is amazing how many slips of paper have been interleaved in the registers; how many annotations there are, some many years later, about 'forgotten' or 'missed' baptisms and how many have been inserted in tiny script between existing entries. Some entries have obviously beeen made by the parish clerk at the same time and with the same pen and ink, others are entered piecemeal in different hands. Marriage entries, as you say, are different, as they had to be signed at the time by the parties concerned and their witnesses, but baptisms and burials were often entered much later. Anne South Australia dennis bramble wrote: snip > As to the 2nd.part of your answer it is not nor was the custom to make > entries into the registers some time after the events took place nor was it > the custom to write details on scraps of paper and enter later. It possibly > did happen occasionally and possibly for a good reason. But why should it > have been anything but rare? After all, almost all the events took place in > church and that is where the registers are kept. So why not enter the > details once only and at the time of the event? In the case of marriage the > register entry is in fact the certificate and has as such to be signed by > bride and groom ,witnesses and the officiating clergy. snip