Every parish church used to hold a treasure trove of records stored in a locked wooden chest. Apart from the parish registers, the paperwork tucked away for safekeeping could include minutes of meetings held by parish officials; rate books; accounts; maps; charity deeds; church seating plans; settlement and bastardy papers; and apprenticeship indentures. Now deposited in local archives, these eclectic records paint a picture of our ancestors’ lives in their local communities. They also provide valuable clues about who our ancestors were, and from where they may have originated.
The parish, supervised by local justices of the peace, was the centre of local government, and meetings to discuss every aspect of community life were held regularly in a room in the church called the vestry, where the vestments – the clergy
