Wiltshire parish records digitised
Over six million records taken from historic parish registers documenting baptisms, marriages and burials in Wiltshire have been digitised for the first time by ancestry.co.uk.
The new Wiltshire Parish Registers 1538-1916 collection features images of the original records held by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council.
At the start of the 16th century, both the British government and the Church of England became particularly interested in record keeping and from 1538, an Act of Parliament required ministers to document key life events in their parish.
Miriam Silverman, Ancestry’s senior content manager, said the collection offered “a fascinating insight into everyday rites of passage, especially for budding family historians with ancestors in the area”.
The collection is searchable by name, birth date, parish, baptism, marriage, burial date, name of spouse and name/s of parents, making it easier for subscribers to identify their Wiltshire ancestors.
It includes 3,266,558 Church of England records (1538-1812) and, post 1813, 1,753,821 births and baptisms; 965,717 banns and marriages; and 377,867 deaths and burials.
Notable people found in the records include Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who designed St Paul’s Cathedral. He was born and baptised on 10 November 1631 in the village of East Knoyle, where his family lived for the first eight years of his life.
The collection also includes the suffragist Edith Bessie New, who was born to parents Frederick and Isabella in Swindon and baptised on 11 July 1877.