Bedfordshire, England: Parish and Probate Records
A collection of parish and probate records in England and Wales, from the 1500s to the 1800s

Bedfordshire, England: Parish and Probate Records

The individual files in this database may not include all dates and records for each parish/church. Use caution in assuming that any database is a complete set of records--even for the parishes and time period listed. Due to the legibility of the original sources, there may be gaps in the records, including partial sentences, cut-off words, and other omissions.

This database is a collection of historical parish and probate registers from the county of Bedfordshire in the Country of England. The 44,700 records in this collection can range in date from the early 1500s to the mid- to late-1800s. Some non-parish records may be included from as early as the twelfth century. Parish records--primarily baptisms, marriages, and burials--provide the best source of vital record information in the centuries before civil registration. The records include baptisms/christenings, burials, marriages, tombstone inscriptions, obituaries, tax lists, wills, and other miscellaneous types of records. Also included are some records from non-conformist churches. All of the data was converted as it was originally presented in various published registers and books. For this reason, you will find interesting phonetic spellings and large descriptive tables of contents.

A large number of parish records date from the sixteenth century, when a series of mandates required clergy to compile records of baptisms, marriages, and burials within the parish, and to send an annual copy to the Bishop. Essentially, there are two sets of records: the parish copy and the copy the clergyman sent to the Bishop each year, known as Bishops Transcripts. Many records were destroyed, lost, or simply not kept during the Civil War (1642-1660). Of the surviving records, many have since been transcribed and collected by genealogical societies. The records are a valuable resource for finding vital information of people of the time. The content of the records may vary between the two sets.

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