Parish Records online

Posted on 30 September 2014

Over 3.2 million entries from the historic Parish Registers and Bishops' transcripts which we care for are now available online in conjunction with Findmypast

We are delighted to announce that over 3.2 million entries from the historic Parish Registers and Bishops' transcripts which we care for are now available online in conjunction with www.findmypast.co.uk

The entries include indexed images of registers of baptism, marriage and burial from over 350 parishes from Yorkshire and beyond, spanning over 450 years of history.

The parish register collection of baptisms, marriages and burials on Findmypast encompasses the parishes situated within the Archdeaconry of York from 1538. This area includes the City of York and a radius of about 20 miles around it.

In addition, the collection on Findmypast includes our collection of Bishops' transcripts (sometimes known as Parish Register transcripts). These cover a much wider area – most of Yorkshire, barring the Deaneries of Richmond and Catterick.

These records can be very useful in supplementing gaps in original Parish Registers; there are entries in the Bishops' transcripts which do not appear in the original register and vice-a-versa. Bishops' transcripts also survive for dates where there are no Parish Registers. The earliest surviving Bishops' transcript dates from 1598 but returns tend to be patchy until the late seventeenth century and none survive for the Commonwealth period (c. 1642-1660). Most parishes stopped returning Bishops' transcripts between 1830 and 1860.

Previously only available on-site at the Borthwick, the records launched on Findmypast are now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In addition for the vast majority of the parishes included this is the first time that they have been indexed.

The digitisation work has been undertaken as part of a wider consortium including East Riding Archives and Local Studies; Teeside Archives and North Yorkshire Archives to bring their historic parish register records to a wider audience.

Access to findmypast.co.uk is free of charge on-site at the Borthwick and many other local libraries.