Blyth - Manuscripts

This document was sent to all Anglican parishes in Northumberland and Durham by the then Bishop, Shute Barrington. It explained the new system of recording baptisms in parish records. The guidelines were introduced from the 1st January 1798. Previously, baptism registers only gave brief information about the person being baptised and give little, if any, information about the parents. In the period, 1798 - 1812, the parish clerk or priest was required to record more information about the person being baptised. In particularinformation about the origins of the parents and even grandpaperts of the child was recorded. This volume would originally have been stored within the parish chest. This detailed information is particularly useful to family historians. Church records have been stored in the Parish chest since medieval times. The Chest would usually be found in the vestry and kept under lock and key. All church records would be stored, for example, baptism registers, poor relief records and churchwardens' accounts.