If you are a seasoned genealogist, you will already know that parish registers are an indispensable resource for family history. However, depending on the parish and the years being searched, the registers can often appear to be deficient in detail, as they only recorded the most basic of information. Despite that, some of the most interesting snippets are to be found in the margins, as the clergy charged with maintaining the registers recorded some rather personal and sometimes cruel observations for posterity. Little did they know, when those words were written, that one day in the future, a ‘nosey’ family historian would be poking around those very same parish registers, penned all those years before.
While most of the clergy never bothered adding anything other than what was required, many included additional notes that often contained gems of extra information that can give us a small glimpse not only of their own prejudices, but also the wider attitudes of society in general. When we look at those notes hidden in the margins, we can learn so much more about our ancestors’ lives. Some say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but were those parish notaries recording the information sometimes a little too honest with their observations? I will let you be the judge of that as we delve into the world of the humble parish clerk.
Peter Cope discovered two examples of illegitimacy noted in the marriage registers for Wiltshire. That isn’t unusual in itself, but the comments that followed certainly were. The first is a marriage on 27 April 1816 in the parish of Ansty in Wiltshire, between John Merryweather (commonly called John King) and Ann Green. A note was added in the margin of the register, which read:
This Illegitimate John
