FamilySearch adds 119,000 records

Almost 119,000 parish registers and nonconformist records have been added to free family history website FamilySearch ( familysearch.org).

The largest addition was to the collection ‘England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539–1988’, which benefited from an extra 107,709 entries for christenings, marriages and burials that took place in the county between 1538 and 1916.

Nonconformist records in two counties also saw a boost with almost 6,700 entries added to the ‘England, Lancashire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647–1996’ record set, and just over 4,500 added to ‘England, Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records 1642–1996’.

Many were transcribed by Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine readers who took part in our Transcription Tuesday event on 2 February 2021. Volunteers helped decipher thousands of parish records, which are the best source of information about births, marriages and deaths before civil registration began in England and Wales in 1837. Prior to that, churchwardens were required to provide details to the bishop of their diocese.

Nonconformist records contain information about baptisms, christenings, marriages and deaths from congregations outside the Church of England.

The Gloucestershire records shed light on people belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, Congregational, Independent, Wesleyan Methodist, French Protestant and New Jerusalemite congregations, while Lancashire’s collection includes entries for Baptist, Protestant, Bible Christian Church, Unitarian, Catholic, Inghamite, Calvinistic, Scotch National Church, Moravian, Universal, Church of Christ, and United Reformed groups, among others.

This engraving depicting the Unitarian Chapel in Rochdale was published in the 19th century