We’ve already looked at official records of births in England and Wales (in the April 2023 issue) and marriages (in June 2023). Now it’s time to switch the focus to records of deaths and their pre-civil registration equivalent, burial records.
Expect the bare minimum until 1813
When it comes to genealogical detail, records of deaths and burials have always been the poor cousins of births, baptisms and marriages. For about 270 years, starting in 1538, when parish registers began to be kept by the Church of England, until 1813, when pre-printed burial registers were introduced under the terms of Rose’s Parish Register Act, it was usual for just the bare minimum details to be recorded. In fact, in pre-18th century registers, you’re more likely than not to find just the name of the deceased together with the date of their burial in the Church of England’s parish burial registers.
Even well into the 19th century, it’s not at all uncommon to come across registers with page-after-page of entries like this. The parish of St Mary, Portsea in Hampshire provides us with a good example; between October 1789 and December 1800, nearly 8,000 burials were recorded in the bustling maritime parish over 140 pages of the register; the only additional identifying feature attached to any of the records is the occasional entry reading ‘Poor’ or ‘Pauper’ or sometimes just the letter ‘P’.
