2«'i S. No 69., April 26. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



323 



College sent to a clergyman in the country for 

 extracts from his register, and he cut them out of 

 the hook and sent them by post, telling him he 

 could make nothing of them. 



Repeated notices of the loss of registers from 

 Jire are to be met with. " It is, indeed, remark- 

 able," says Burn in his History of Parish Re- 

 gisters, " why it happens that there should have 

 been so many fires at the residences of the clergy." 

 But even when the registers are deposited^ in 

 churches they do not always escape the devouring 

 element, as is well known. By the fire which de- 

 stroyed Lewisham Church a few years ago, all the 

 registers from the year 1550 were consumed ; and 

 as there are transcripts in the bishop's registry for 

 twenty-four years only, the evidence of the bap- 

 tisms, marriages, and burials in that parish for 

 upwards of 250 years is irrecoverably lost. 



Several of the witnesses examined before the 

 Parochial Registration Committee were loud in 

 their complaints of the difficulty and expense of 

 finding registers. Mr. Joseph Parkes said he 

 spent upwards of SOOl. pursuing an investigation 

 by searching registers alone for one party. 



" I have," says Mr. Parkes, in another part of his evi- 

 dence, "two or three schedules of bills where the large 

 proportion of charges are for searches in parochial regis- 

 tration for vouchers of pedigree. Every convej-ance or 

 mortgage now delayed in my office, as far as I recollect, 

 is so delayed for the purpose of verifying the title, owing 

 to defects in registers; and I happen to have an im- 

 portant mortgage in my office, Avhich I cannot complete 

 because of that defect." 



I had marked for extracts several other pas- 

 sages in the books before mentioned, and others, 

 but probably the foregoing will be deemed suffi- 

 cient ; besides, I am fearful of trespassing too 

 much on your valuable space. 



Let us, however, hear what some of the judges 

 have said on the subject. Lord Mansfield, on a 

 trial at which he presided, said : 



" I think the minister highly blameable for not making 

 the entries regular according to the Act, and that the 

 Attorney-General should exhibit an information against 

 him ex officio ; for on his accuracy may depend the proof 

 of pedigrees (which begin now to be very difficult) and 

 the descent of real estates." 



Lord Chancellor Eldon observed upon a ques- 

 tion of pedigree (Walker v. Wingfield, 18 Vesey, 

 443.), that not one register in one hundred teas kept 

 according to the canon, and added : 



" Lord Rosslyn once proposed to move the House of 

 Lords to reject all registers ; but on account of the incon- 

 venience 1 prevailed upon his lordship to relinquish his 

 intention, and we are now in the habit of administering 

 registers and copies of registers, though not kept accord- 

 ing to the canon, that is, according to law. Whether 

 this is to continue is a question of very great importance." 



Mr. Serjeant Jones having stated that an ob- 

 literation appeared in a register which was pro- 

 duced upon the trial of the cause Doe andllungate 



at York assizes about twenty-four years ago, 

 Mr. Justice Alderson, who tried the cause, ob- 

 served, — 



" Are you surprised at that. Brother Jones? I am not 

 at all surprised ; I have had much experience, and I 

 never saw a parish registry-book in my life that was not 

 falsified in one way or other, and I do not believe there is 

 one that is not." 



The law-books are indeed full of distressing 

 cases of property lost through forged entries in 

 register books, or the want of missing registers, or 

 through the negligence of clergymen omitting to 

 make any entries at all. 



It is no wonder, then, that the Select Committee 

 on Parochial Registration (1833) arrived at the 

 conclusion that the registers " are often falsified, 

 stolen, burnt, inaccurately inscribed, and care- 

 lessly preserved," and recommended, amongst 

 other things, — 



" That a duplicate » of each register should always be 

 made — and that such duplicate should be periodically 

 transmitted to the metropolis, where a General National 

 Office should be formed, a superintending authority 

 should exist, and alphabetical and accurate indexes and 

 abstracts should be prepared." 



If Parliament should decide upon having all the 

 parish registers from 1538 to 1837 deposited in 

 some metropolitan office, the books as they arrived 

 should be, for convenience of reference, arranged 

 in counties alphabetically, and the parishes also in 

 alphabetical order under the counties to which 

 they belong, the missing registers being, as far as 

 practicable, supplied by the diocesan transcripts f : 

 the books should also be forthwith numbered 

 and paged, and the necessary particulars trans- 

 cribed for the indexes J, which for many reasons 

 should be divided into four periods : 1538 — 1600, 

 1601 — 1700, 1701 — 1800, 1801 —1837, — and 

 should comprise the following information ar- 

 ranged in alphabetical order, so far as regarded 

 the four first columns : 



* It is diiBcult to understand why Parliament, by the 

 Act G & 7 William IV. e. 86. (commonlj' called the Kegis- 

 tration Act) sanctioned the transmission to the General 

 Register Office of certified copies, instead of diiplicales of 

 the register books. 



t Having observed Mb. Burn's article (p. 18L) re- 

 specting these transcripts, I have purposely refrained from 

 entering into the subject, as it cannot be left in better 

 hands. I maj', however, be permitted to say that I 

 think Mr. Burn might have made out a strongei- case, 

 even from his own Ilistory of Parish Begisters. I also 

 think that all the defaulting parishes should be compelled 

 to complete their transcripts, and to forward them to the 

 proper courts for-thwith. 



J All the historical facts niet with in transcribing the 

 registers might be inserted in a. book for that purpose. 



