Availability of Parish Registers

[Andrew Tarr]

At the time baptisms were through the church. Birth records were of a civil nature and at times ignored. So baptisms were public events.

Marriages came with Banns attached which is the placing of notices on the parish church door - once again for all to see and object to if they so desire.

Death is the most public of all events with headstones proclaiming a life.

Quite so.  But banns were very short-lived, and many poorer people could not afford headstones.  We're discussing present-day availability, and whether just about anything 'public' should become available world-wide, perhaps without the consent of the participants.

I wasn't suggesting that single mothers should not register their child's birth, just leave the Name of Father blank.  That certainly happened often enough.

[jaybelnz]

I'm just thinking out loud here, but for what it's worth, I agree -  I tend to think that in the early times of record keeping, say in Parish records, the people of the day probably didn't even think about what was written in Church Records and later, registers. Or who might see whatever records in the future.

I know from my collection of early certs, that many of them are marked with - X his or her mark, so they wouldn't have been able to check what was written - that's if they even had the opportunity!

 I suspect that any family members involved in the case of entry re an illegitimate child , would have been more concerned with what Old Nellie across the road was going to tell big mouthed Maggie, and who else would she tell etc etc.

Nor would they know what would be written in the Kirk Session Records!

[majm]

I have understood that the reason at least in England for the clergy to name the putative father on a baptism was so the parish could look to that person to provide the financial support of the child, so it was public knowledge  available to the local community.     

The system was different in 19th Century NSW as there was no formal declaration of an "Established Church", and the administration provided funding for the Female Orphanage and the Male Orphanage from their initial foundations. (Again, these institutions were established during the 'reign' of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, a Scotsman, governor of NSW from 1810 to 1821.   It was also during the Macquarie era that the practice of transmitting quarterly returns of baptisms, burials and weddings celebrated by clergy of all denominations were ordered to be forwarded to the NSW Chaplains.  (I should note that NSW at that time included all of what is now the Eastern states of Australia, and New Zealand, and the South Seas Islands .... so a huge territory from a geographical perspective, and with Missionaries from various denominations sailing from London and etc).... so not just the settled areas in and around the penal settlements at Sydney, Port Macquarie, or at Norfolk Island, or in Van Diemen's Land....   So in the early C of E parish registers at St Philips, Sydney NSW, there are records of bdm events that were celebrated by various priests and clerics of many denominations at various locations in the Antipodes.

Re Baptismal records .... when the masses in say Ireland were suffering the 19th century famines and people were seeking to Emigrate, there were many emigration plans, including some organised to bring single females from Ireland to Australia.   Those lasses needed ID, and the form used most often was their local parish baptismal certificate, newly issued by the incumbent priests at their local parish and the details included on their Passenger Lists which are now being uploaded to various commercial websites.  Similarly, when families were migrating under other Assisted passenger schemes in the later quarters of the 19th Century, they too used their baptismal certificates for ID, perhaps it was a more reliable document at the time, or perhaps better recognised, or easier to seek out from the local Reverend.... 

I will look up and Add a link to a couple of the digitised Gazette entries showing some general orders.... your 21st century eyes may need to be put back into their sockets with some of the wordings....

HERE I ADD
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/627934 The Sydney Gazette 24 February 1810.
Whereas His Excellency the Governor has seen with great Regret, the Immorality and Vice so prevalent …… the scandalous and pernicious Custom so generally and shamelessly adopted of Persons of different Sexes Cohabiting and living together unsanctioned by the legal ties of Matrimony …………… and whereas such Practices are a Scandall to Religion, to Decency and to all  Good Government; And whereas also frequent Applications have been made on the Part of Divers Women to the Court of Civil Jurisdiction ……..

So, you need to ask yourself
a)   How did anyone in 1810 and earlier in Sydney Town, NSW, know that these Persons of different Sexes were living together unsanctioned by Matrimony unless someone was checking the parish registers
b)   And so the civil administration were basically trying to avoid civil claims re Intestate estates and fatherless children seeking a benefit from such an estate
c)   And what about those convicted persons who had married back in Britain…..

So, in respect of c) those marriages were effectively ended with the sentence of transportation beyond the seas but in respect of a) the parish registers were available for viewing, in a similar way to the present.   You asked permission to view, and you waited until permission was granted, and you paid the fee asked for by the clergy. 

There have been many threads about bigamy v re-marriage when transported beyond the seas but here is a starting point, so there were many reasons for accessing the parish records even at the time they were being made, and within the lifetime of the person about whom they were made....
 
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=699561.msg5427556#msg5427556
 
Cheers  JM

[Guy Etchells]

Perhaps I tried to be too concise earlier, so let me step back and try again.  We are now well aware of Data Protection, and that may have made us circumspect about what we release about ourselves.  I was trying to imagine what 19th-C people thought (if they did) about who might read their BMD records - and of course many of them could not themselves read.  Even now, birth, marriage and death registers are actually seen by few people when the entries are made.

I think you are being confused by the myth that our ancestors were not literate, studies have shown that literacy levels in the 19th century were as good if not better than modern standards and even as far back as the 17th century there were good levels of literacy amongst the working classes.
There is even evidence to show that the peasants’ revolt of 1381 was organised by way of the written word.

My presumption was that (if the thought arose) those 19th-C people assumed that the info went into the (church) register and only the officials ever saw it again.  If they were told (and believed) that the whole world would one day be able to view them on demand, they might have had some reservations (women could keep stumm about who their child's father was, and often did).  That was what I meant about levels of accessibility, even though the data was required, and 'public'.

From our standpoint as researchers, we must be grateful for later developments - but spare a thought for others who may feel that the original info was not provided on that basis.

The public (in England & Wales) have been aware that churches kept registers of BMDs since their inception in 1538 and from at least 1644 these records of Baptisms (& births), Marriages, and Burials (& deaths) have been available to all to inspect This has never been a secret.

The 1644 ordinance states-
“...and that said book shall be showed, by such as keep the same, to all persons reasonably desiring to search for the birth, baptizing, marriage, or burial of any person therein registered, and to take a copy or procure a certificate thereof.”

Marriages in England & Wales are not legal unless open to public inspection.
What people fail to realise these days which our ancestors understood is it is secrets that cause harm not knowledge.
Our ancestors were not ashamed to be bastards it was open knowledge. The only problem was when a bastard child became a drain on public resources, in the same way as a large family on benefits today can become a drain on public resources and are becoming stigmatised.
Cheers
Guy

[Guy Etchells]

I'm just thinking out loud here, but for what it's worth, I agree -  I tend to think that in the early times of record keeping, say in Parish records, the people of the day probably didn't even think about what was written in Church Records and later, registers. Or who might see whatever records in the future.

I know from my collection of early certs, that many of them are marked with - X his or her mark, so they wouldn't have been able to check what was written - that's if they even had the opportunity!

 I suspect that any family members involved in the case of entry re an illegitimate child , would have been more concerned with what Old Nellie across the road was going to tell big mouthed Maggie, and who else would she tell etc etc.

Nor would they know what would be written in the Kirk Session Records!

Never assume that a mark on a register means a person could not read or write.
Very often it can be shown that those very people who made a mark on a marriage register were writing fluently on other documents before or after if a search is made.

Many people used marks in their day to day lives to mark their work. Tradesmen for example would add a mark (not necessarily an x) to the work they had done so they could be paid for it.

I have mentioned before in the 1960s I witnessed a group of teenage lads who were all highly literate and educated at a good Scottish Academy sign a RAF form with an x as their Commanding Officer to them to make their mark on the form, only a very few actually signed their names.

When living in an authoritarian environment most people do as they are told rather than doing what they can do.
If told to sign their name they will sign their name if told to make their mark they will make their mark.
Cheers
Guy

[DavidG02]

To follow majms point about baptismal records in Ireland being needed - it is my understanding that the Baptismal/Parish records were needed to be able to apply for a State Pension

[majm]

Sorry everyone, by the time I added my info that I looked up re the 1810 co-habitation scandals of NSW, a number of newer posts were  added.  So, I am simply posting here to show where everyone had got up to before my additional material had been posted. 

In particular I had found an RChat thread that included some info from Guy in a reply. 

Cheers,  JM

[majm]

Even in the 20th Century, and until about the late 1980s, in NSW it was still acceptable to use a baptismal certificate for proof of name and age and place of birth.  I know, because I regularly used mine for that very purpose.   I am a baby boomer, born shortly after WWII ceased.  I know which document I used when gaining my NSW drivers licence on my 17th birthday in the 1960s.  I know which document I used when marrying in the 1970s.  I know which documents (baptism and marriage as per parish register) I used when seeking a Passport to travel with my husband overseas.

Of course, there was a huge scandal starting in about 1988, when a Financial Wiz by name of Christopher Skase (he died August 2001) ripped off many many Australians for their life savings and managed to escape Australia using his passport.  The government brought in a more secure system of checking ID and the need to spend big pennies on confidential civil birth and marriage certificates became the norm. But until then, parish records were as respected as the civil registrations.  It is just that civil registrations are more easily recognised and checkable by public servants who handle the admin of the passport issuing system. 

Cheers,  JM

[Blue70]

I have a copy of a baptism certificate sent to England from the parish of Arbory, Isle of Man in 1937. The covering note mentions that it was "required for claiming an Old Age Pension". The recipient was born before civil registration started on the island so their birth was not registered by any civil authority.


Blue