Non-Conformist Records

Non-Conformist Records

What do we mean by ‘Non-Conformist’ ?

• Essentially ‘Non-Conformism’ refers to religious practices that
deviate from those of the ‘Established Church’ of the day.

• “The Church” originally meant just the Church of Rome, but
after Henry VIII broke ranks with that and instituted the
Church of England that then sur-planted the Church of Rome
for the rest of his reign, followed by a state of turmoil where
each kept replacing the other as the official religion of the
state; the term “Established Church” became used to describe
whatever was the then ‘flavour of the month’ – so the
historical records are in fact a mixture of records pertaining to
both the Church of Rome AND the Church of England.

The Extent of Non-Conformity

• After the advent of the Baptist Movement, other followed -
such as Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congregational, and
others.

• By about 1800, about one third of the entire population
were reckoned to be some form of Non-Conformist, plus
others observed few religious practices at all.

• It is estimated that about half of the population were not
practising members of the Church of England – so could not
be relied upon to have Baptised their children - so the
recording process had seriously broken down. The fact of
this breakdown is rarely adequately reflected in
Genealogical instruction.

What are Non-Conformists? - 1

• I don’t intend to try to define such from an ecclesiastical
viewpoint – but merely try to define to what I’m restricting
myself in this presentation

• I’m concentrating upon records within England, but
similarities exist for Wales and Scotland – but probably not
for Ireland

• I’m attempting to address records of Birth or Burial that failed
to get incorporated into the usual Parish records – ignoring
Inter-Regnum peculiarities when recording often ceased.

• I shall also include other records that are useful specifically in
respect of Non-Conformists. In this presentation, I’m
including essentially any religious sect that does not adhere to
the doctrines or procedures of the “Established Church”

What are Non-Conformists? - 2

• Religions practiced within England and Wales, Scotland,
Ireland, and the Colonies as well were all essentially Christian,
as the Jews had been excluded by Henry II and other practices
had not yet surfaced. Jews re-appeared from about 1730.
Jewish records are quite different, and won’t be fully
addressed here.

• Most Non-Conformist religions are therefore merely based on
minor procedural differences of no real significance – but as
with most such differences, the various participants and non-
participants were involved in heated ‘debates’ about these,
and legislation was enacted to try to suppress the various
deviant practices – that now included Roman Catholicism,
once the Anglican Church finally attained stability as THE
Established Church.

Does your family have any Non-
Conformists?

• Almost certainly – but you may not have
found them yet

• Does it matter? – almost certainly yes
• My researches took a long time to get really

started; one of the difficulties was me not
addressing the Non-Conformist issues

Why ‘religion’ matters in
Genealogy

• Different religious sects have different customs
regarding the recording of acts of Baptism, Marriage,
and Burial

• Determining the religious denomination of one’s
ancestors can therefore be key to finding the records
of their existence, and their parentage.

• Sometimes, the present holds the key to the past in
respect of religious practices, but when ‘mixed’
marriages occur then often the practices of just one
of the parents may govern the subsequent practices
of the children and their offspring

Non-Conformist Records

• There’s a tendency for Genealogists to be
brainwashed by the plethora of instructions as
to how to find one’s ancestors, by the way
that the GRO, IGI, and Parish Record data are
introduced.

• Most approaches never mention Non-
Conformist records, seemingly treating these
as if they are applicable to just an insignificant
minority of people.

1837 and the General Register Office

• Prior to July 1837, almost the only fairly reliable records that existed to
shew that a person had ever lived, were the Parish records of Baptism,
Marriage, and Burial.

• The GRO system of recording Births, Marriages, and Deaths came into
being because by the early-Eighteenth Century, the ‘old’ system had
seriously broken down because ever increasing numbers of the
population could not be relied upon to use the Church of England Baptism
feature, and the certificate recording such event was prior to 1837 the
only means of demonstrating a person’s identity – and the Parish in which
they were entitled to settlement, and hence Parish relief when necessary.

• Of these features, the Baptismal records are the most important, because
– in theory – everyone should have had such an entry, and these ought to
have recorded the parental details, whereas not everyone married, and
although – in theory – everyone would have a burial record, such
generally provided very little useful data other than an often incorrect
guess at a person’s age, and burials could for many reasons have taken
place far from those places revealed by other research – so often very
difficult to locate, and gave no indication of parentage except for children

The GRO Records

• Whilst the records of Marriages and Deaths under the GRO
System may be assumed to be very nearly complete, this is
not so for Births, as registration was not “compulsory” until
1888, so Parish Records and records of other types are still
important up until at least that date.

• However, ignorance and poverty still prevailed, and
registrations often did not occur because the applications
were ‘out of time’, or because the parents wished to avoid
the fees. Sometimes the birth date was falsified, to appear to
be “in-date”. I have some relatives, where I was told that the
birth of an individual had never been registered, and that the
certificate of a sibling was produced instead if a certificate
was ever required.

Hardwick’s Marriage Act of 1754

• The quality of details recorded in the Parish records of Baptism, Marriage,
and Burial events frequently left much to be desired. For Marriages, not
only was the recorded detail often inadequate, but various types of
“irregular” marriages occurred, performed by priests that were not
attached to a specific Parish; some of these clandestine arrangements
involved non-consenting brides and children as young as 12 or 14.

• Hardwick’s Act tried to rectify the position – at least as far as Marriages
were concerned – by obliging everyone that wanted to have a ‘legal’
marriage to perform this under the auspices of the Established Church.
However, this displeased those that were not of that religious persuasion,
but it did much to ensure some integrity of the records then produced.
There were always some, that declined to get married in a C of E church.
Quakers, and subsequently Jews, were permitted to conduct their own
marriages, and records of those are kept separate – if they actually
survived. Some of these have got into the IGI – but many have not.

• Records of marriages for Jews are retained by the appropriate Jewish
organisation. However, these records are not made available for public
search, and are of course in Aramaic. Many registers have been
transcribed, but I have found no definitive list that indicates how
complete – or otherwise – those transcriptions have been, and NONE of
these are in the IGI – because the IGI records relate solely to Christians.

Dissenters and Hardwick’s Act

• Some dissenters disliked Hardwick’s Act so much, (in that
attempted to force them to marry in an Anglican church), that
they were prepared to go “abroad” to defeat it.

• Large numbers went to border towns in Scotland – such as
(but not limited to ) Gretna Green – that were of course
outside of English Law

• Until 1856, no residence qualification was required to marry
in Scotland

• Other dissenters located with easier access to Man, a Channel
Island, or Calais may have used those instead, or even Ulster

• It may be wise to check the on-line index of Scottish
marriages for suspected Non-Conformists

Burial Records

• Burial records remained relatively complete, because originally the only
place to bury a body was in a Parish churchyard – apart from a relatively
insignificant number of interments on private land. However, burials
could take place in distant Parishes that a researcher would not easily
associate, and may therefore be almost untraceable.

• With the rise of Non-Conformity in religious practices, even the burial
recording became unreliable, because newly-formed religious groups
began to acquire their own land for burials, and these being beyond the
normal statutory controls were usually recorded, but the records not
necessarily preserved. Such record books that existed, frequently
contained other information, and were often regarded by the ministers as
their own property and may have been retained by them when they
ceased to officiate.

• Records of Jewish burials do exist, but are relatively difficult to locate. In
the event of a mixed marriage, the spouse of the non-Jew was entitled to
burial in the Jewish Burial Ground, but was normally interred separately.

Baptismal Records

• Frequently, a Baptismal record was the only
record that had provided any sort of reliable
evidence as to the existence of a person, and in
particular documented the Parish to which they
“belonged”.

• In the rural areas, Parish priests generally took
the trouble to seek-out the parents of children
that had not been Baptised, and so the records
for small Parishes were generally mostly
‘complete’, but as the population grew, the hold
of the priests on the population began to fail.

The ‘Baptist’ Movement - 1

• The uncertainties caused by Henry VIII in
about 1538 breaking away from the Church of
Rome, followed by subsequent monarchs
reinstating the old faith and rejecting it again
several times, gave rise to a widespread dis-
satisfaction with religious procedures, and in
1622 the Baptist movement was one of the
first groups recognised as going it’s own
separate ways – contrary to the laws of the
land.

The Baptist Movement - 2

• Non-Conformity in general, wasn’t confined to
a specific class of people, but generally to
those that had some degree of independence
such as tradesmen that were not dependant
on the patronage of specific landowners, but
landowners were also involved.

• A hotbed of Non-Conformity arose particularly
in Bedfordshire, and in the adjoining areas of
Hertfordshire. King’s Walden in Hertfordshire
is the village from which my ancestors hailed
in the 17C, 18C, and early 19C.

The Baptist Movement - 3

• It is not clear to me whether the Baptists ever tried to
institute their own marriage ceremonies; some
certainly made their own arrangements for burials.

• However, the most important change that was
instituted was the discontinuance of Infant Baptism by
the Baptists – and other Non-Conformist sects. Of
course, some Non-Conformists still went through the
motions of having children Baptised by an Anglican
Parish priest, but most abandoned the practice
altogether – with the result that very often no
statutory records were produced that recorded the
existence of the children.

Quakers

• Quakers were another small group of non-
conformists, that kept their own records of
births, marriages, and burials.

• Quakers, and subsequently Jews, were the
only break-away groups permitted to conduct
their own marriage arrangements.

Baptist’s Records

• Although the Baptist movement rejected Infant Baptism, they still
performed the Baptismal process – but upon mature adults as a
mark of their admittance into the Baptist movement, in a process
logically equivalent to the combined processes of infant baptism
plus the ‘confirmation’ process that followed Baptism in early
adulthood within the Anglican Church.

• Most Baptist organisations maintained a Meeting Book, in which
records of ‘admissions’ were recorded, and sometimes even
recorded the birth of children to members, and also marriages
performed in an Anglican Parish Church – but these records were
not conforming to the legal requirements for Parish Records, have
not necessarily been retained for us to examine today, and were
not necessarily in ‘register’ format.

• Some meetings did decide to maintain a register of BIRTHS, and
these may have been preserved by the GRO in their category RG6
to RG8 records.

• What does concern us here, is that ALL of the
Non-Conformist practices were essentially
outside of the Law, and did not adhere to the
record-keeping requirements for the
sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, and Burial.

Absence of Records for Birth Events

• Although the GRO began recording Births from July 1837, registration did
not become compulsory until 1888, and even after that registration was
never 100%. Fortunately, the LDS continued their transcription of
Baptisms after 1837, and into the twentieth century – but purely for
reasons of their own.

• Another problem arose from the Birth registration process, in that whilst
Baptisms could be performed at any time within a person’s lifetime (but
indexing problems would arise), Birth registration had by Law to be
performed within a specified few weeks of birth, failing which the birth
could then no longer be registered EVER – so a certificate never then
obtainable. The only legal substitute for a certificate of birth is a
‘Statutory Declaration’ for the event, and there is no process for
registering those; we have also had immigrants entering Britain, for whom
the birth records (if indeed any) are located elsewhere.

• This means that between 1622 and 1888, as many as half the births of
children may be entirely unrecorded, and significant numbers continue to
go unrecorded to the present day.

• This may well explain why you as Genealogists may experience difficulties
locating many births.

My Personal Experiences - 1

• Although I had overheard comments made by my
Father’s family, about them being ‘Wesleyan’ or
‘Chapel’, I really wasn’t too certain what that meant,
so when I began my Genealogical research, I had no
idea whatsoever that this would necessitate a
completely different approach as opposed to my
Mother’s family that were typical ‘Church of England’
people.

• Moreover, none of my ‘instructional’ material seemed
to even hint that I would need to be using a largely
totally separate and different set of records (pre-1837)
to find my Father’s family, because at that time I was
meeting with ‘brick walls’ no matter where I searched.

My Personal Experiences - 2

• I began my Genealogy by looking for my namesake, that
was granted the Freedom of the City of Great Yarmouth in
1813. I hold the original document, but was unable to
place the man, because there was no record of his birth to
be found – and seemingly none for his marriage either.

• That start was of course quite wrong, as I should have
begun from myself and worked back methodically from
there – but I thought that I could use a ‘short-cut’.

• Although I have now documented my main line back to
around 1661, I still have no documentary record for the
birth of the holder of that Freeman’s Certificate, or direct
evidence of his parentage – simply because the Family was
Non-Conformist.

My 3x GGF

• This is the fellow that began my interest in Genealogy, not
just because he was another John Goodwin, but because at
age 14 I was given a certificate granting the Freedom of the
City of Great Yarmouth to him

• This document – though verified now as valid – caused me no
end of difficulties, because he was supposedly apprenticed (in
his early to mid twenties) to William Palgrave the Younger,
that was the head of Customs & Excise at Great Yarmouth;
however, during that period, John occupied a large house in
the Mile End Road, and was having his family there!

• Had I not been given the certificate, I would probably have
never associated John with Yarmouth.

Freeman’s Certificate - 1

Freeman’s Certificate - 2

My Personal Experiences - 3

• I wasted much time trying to locate the person that I now know to be my
3x GGF, looking for him in East Anglia, because of the Freeman’s
Certificate, and because of enumerator fraud on the 1881 Census that
shewed my GGF to have come from that area also – when in fact neither
did! (At that time, I presumed these to be father & son).

• It wasn’t until in desperation and having looked at seemingly every set of
records available, that I purchased a set of CDs of the BVRI and eventually
located there a set of 8 birth records that appeared to relate to my family,
and I furthermore shewed that one entire film for Marriages at St.
Dunstan’s Church had been omitted from the IGI (they were on Paillot’s
Index), that I eventually began to make some headway and placed the
family in East Middlesex.

• The BVRI (first edition) identifies certain entries as ‘Dr Williams’s Library’
entries, but this annotation is omited from version 2, and when I first
encountered such entries the name meant nothing to me. Subsequently,
the ‘Non-Conformist’ involvement became apparent to me.

• In sheer desperation, I’d searched all sorts of records, checking every
‘Goodwin’ entry. I did spot a ‘John Goodwin’ entry on a PCC index for
1849, but as this was at Hitchin – out of area – I ignored it.

Doctor Williams’s Library - 1

• The Non-Conformists realised that certain difficulties could
arise for members not having any sort of personal
documentation – such as a certificate of Baptism, so if they
fell on hard times it was difficult to claim ‘settlement’ in the
Parish of their birth.

• From 1743 to 1837, the Library operated a registration
facility to enable Non-Conformists to avoid having to
undertake Anglican Baptism to obtain a certificate of
Baptism. They issued BIRTH CERTIFICATES at a charge of
2/6d each! Backdated submissions exist from 1715, and
there was a sudden peak in the demand immediately prior
to July 1837 for reasons that are not apparent to me, but
possibly because the new system did not accept back-
dating and possibly prohibited the older forms of
registration.

Dr Williams’s Library - 2

• Each Birth Certificate was signed by the surgeon,
midwife, father, and all persons claiming to have
been present at the birth – including in one of my
cases the nine-year-old brother of the infant.

• Certificates stated the date and time of birth, the,
the child’s name, mother, and father. Later
certificates named the mother’s parents, gave their
address, the address of the birth, and the father’s
occupation.

Dr Williams’s Library - 3

• The actual Birth Certificate records are now held
by The National Archives catalogued as RG-5,
with RG-4 as the index. These are both paper
records.

• The index has been transcribed like a Parish
Register by the LDS, but with frequent errors. It
is not included in the published IGI, but is
included as an extension as part of the British
Vital Records Index (versions 1 & 2) and is thus
included in the pilot version of the new IGI.

Records from Dr. Williams’s Library

My certificate for John Goodwin

My certificate for Thomas
Goodwin

Other IGI Inclusions

• Contrary to the general understanding, the IGI is not just an
accumulation of Parish Register transcriptions; there are
also transcriptions of some Non-Conformist registers there
as well.

• The included Non-Conformist registers, are mostly those
that were submitted to the GRO in 1837, and constitute the
RG-4, RG-6, RG-7, and RG-8 categories in the archives now
held by the TNA. Theoretically, you can call for the GRO to
produce certificates for these RG4-RG8 entries.

• The problem with being able to use these transcriptions, is
being able to form the link that leads to those records, as
these are not Parochial records and so there may be no
‘obvious’ connection with people living in an apparently
unconnected village. In my case, the registers were for a
Meeting House in Hitchin, whilst the residence was at
King’s Walden – several miles away – and my connection
was via “London” and without baptismal or parental data.

Other Non-Conformist Traits

• You may find – like me – that not only can you
not find Birth/Baptismal records, perhaps also
Marriage, and even Burial records for your
Non-Conformist relatives

• They may have gone to great trouble to
exclude themselves from the Censuses, the
Death records, and even the regular form of
Probate!

Children of my 3x GGPs

• 1811 Mary Ann - the Spinster

• 1815 Clementia - the Governess/Nurse

• 1818 Samuel - my 2x GGF

• 1820 John - the Chemist

• 1824 Daniel - the Ironmonger

• 1822 Joseph - the Schoolmaster

• 1828 Ann - Married circa 1850?

• 1829 Thomas - the Architect

Census Records

• My 3x GGF and his immediate family that
were still at home, appeared as a group in
1841 , but useful data was not obtainable

• My 3x GGF and wife died between the 1841
and 1851 Censuses, so the family became
fragmented; of the eight children, despite
having eight sets of birth records, I tracked
just my 2x GGF Samuel moderately easily

• Samuel was discovered in the 1881 Census,
after I had fully documented his eldest child –
John Henry – my GGF

1881 Census - 1

• It took a long long time to find my GGPs in the 1881
Census; this was due to enumerator FRAUD.

• The enumerator for Islington, tried to do as little
work as possible; he did not deliver the schedules for
completion by the householder, but filled these in
during the day at the door on his single visit; he
recorded details just for persons actually seen –
except the absent head of household, for whom he
fabricated details

• For my GGPs, two children (unseen by the
enumerator) were omitted, and my GGF was
recorded as born Ipswich 1836

1881 Census - 2

• I found my 1x GGPs and family, only by a record-by-record
search of all of the surname GOODWIN for the whole of
“London”, subsequently shewn to be necessary just because
the enumerator had written-up the entire area by omitting
forenames

• Because the search had now homed-in on just “my” people, I
failed to note the anomaly that about half of the heads of
household in Islington had apparently been born in Ipswich

• Six months of abortive research on Ipswich records, finally
revealed the fraud; he had actually been born in Mile End in
1842 – just like his wife; up until this point, I was working
solely from my own original documents, as I had yet to
discover the GRO.

1881 Census - 3

• 1881 Census records were eventually found for four other great-great
uncles and aunts – but still not for Daniel, Thomas and Ann

• Ann could be “missing” due to a marriage as yet unidentifiable; Daniel
appeared in 1851 living with Joseph and family, but since then has
disappeared “without trace”

• Joseph is not to be found in 1861, but emerged on a PCC Will in 1870 –
witnessed by Thomas (giving an address in Clapton); Thomas was also not
recorded in 1861 - or subsequently

• Joseph’s two male children ‘disappeared’ after leaving college
• Did these people intentionally get omitted from the Censuses, or is there

some other explanation such as travelling abroad still to emerge? Thomas
is believed to have participated in the Crimean Wars, but as his medals
passed to Samuel is presumed to have pre-deceased him in England.
These medals are in an assumed name.

John Goodwin’s vital records

• No birth/baptism record has yet emerged, so I have
no direct evidence of parents.

• His marriage was apparently unrecorded – or so I
thought until I demonstrated that serious omissions
have occurred in Phillimore’s records of IGI content;
St. Dunstan’s (and other East End Churches) have
NOT been fully transcribed (Paillot’s Index shewed
this to be so)

• He did not die in “London” – so death details hard to
find.

• Because he was a non-conformist, he or his executor
opted to prove the Will at the PCC!!!

Prerogatory Court of Canterbury

• Prior to 1858, Wills were proved by Ecclesiastical Courts – different ones
being prescribed according to where the deceased’s property was located

• The term ‘property’ here relates to anything owned – not just to real
estate – so even Ag. Labs. could have had ‘property’ to leave, but of
course if their possessions were merely household effects and clothing,
then it’s unlikely that they would have made a Will, and the family would
probably have avoided the expenses involved in ‘proving’ any Will made.

• If all the property was located in one Parish, then a Will could be proved
in the Archdeaconry Court; if held in more than one Parish, then the
Bishop’s Court was required; if held in more than one County, then the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury was required for the South of England (or
the corresponding court for the North of England).

• The executor could opt to have a Will proved in a higher court than strictly
necessary, if so desired.

John’s Property

• Shortly before his death, John moved to Hitchin in
Hertfordshire – events unbeknown to me at the time
of researching, although I had actually seen and
dismissed the index entry for this because it was ‘out
of area’

• John owned household effects etc., but also held real
estate in the form of ownership of the land in which
his wife’s remains had been interred

• Consequently, his Will had to be proved at Doctor’s
Commons in “London”

The need or wish to use the PCC

• In John’s case, he held property in more than one County, so
the Will had to be proved at the PCC. However, the holding
of a grave deed relating to another County is the sort of
‘property’ that researchers might easily overlook. (I wonder
how many grave deeds technically come under YOUR
responsibility?)

• More importantly, non-conformists frequently CHOSE to use
the PCC Court, because they didn’t want the local C of E
clergy to have access to their personal details

• The latter is a very important point to consider, as the
possibility of a PCC Will existing for persons of relatively
modest means is easily overlooked

PCC Records

• The PCC Record Indices have been available on microfiche for many years,
and the actual probate register on microfilm, but in about 2001 the TNA
began to transfer these to an on-line database – with copies supposedly
of the “Wills” as well

• The Probate Records had sometime earlier been filmed, and were all
available for reference at the Family Records Centre and the TNA. The
FRC had an index of these, whereas the TNA fraudulently deny access to
this and oblige researchers to pay for access to the digital records.

• The records were “digitised” on a piecemeal basis, so a new index was
prepared on an ongoing basis as the records became available on-line.
Unfortunately - or in my case perhaps I should say fortunately – some of
the entries were mis-transcribed. In my case, John’s Probate was
recorded under ‘Mile End’ (where he lived when it was made) whereas it
should have been shewn as ‘Hitchin’ (where he actually died). I had
previously seen the ‘Hitchin’ entry on the microfiche index – but ignored
it!

John’s PCC Will - 1

• I couldn’t sleep one night, when worrying
about ongoing work in The Court of
Protection. This was at the time that the 1901
Census data was supposed to be available on-
line, so I thought I’d try to get on-line (not
knowing then why it had been blocked). I
noticed the new site, and thought that I’d
look.

• I now found the ‘Mile End’ entry, and
wondered why – but eventually I chose to
look.

John’s PCC Will - 2

• Having forked-out the £3, I was most annoyed
by what I got appearing on-screen. The
details were almost totally illegible.

• However, knowing his name plus that of his
wife and eight children, I managed to “read”
this into the garbage that appeared on screen.

• I dashed off to the FRC to view the Will on
film. To my horror, I found that the “digitised”
entry was unreadable, because the film
version was similarly unreadable!!!!!

John’s PCC Will - 3

• From there, I had to order the original of the Will to
be taken to Kew, and there I was able to read the
document.

• In a way, it was a good thing that I had been obliged
to obtain the original document, because the copy
that I had tried to view was NOT of course the
original Will, but a transcript from it as copied into
the probate register (all these records are such).

• Going to Kew, not only produced the original
document of the actual Will, but also a previous Will
attached to it, plus another document.

John’s Wills

• By viewing the TWO Will documents, this brought
together all the previous uncertainties that I was
facing. These linked him with William Palgrave (then
head of C & E Ireland) so proving the Yarmouth link
as factual.

• Perhaps the best part was that John expressed a
desire to be buried at the Particular Baptist Church
Burial Ground – near to his three named cousins! –
so despite me to this day not having a document to
prove his birth and parentage, I went through the
Church Records and traced the family back to Law

Hall in about 1661.

The Particular Baptist Records

• On visiting the Church, I had hands-on access to all
their original records going back to the early 1600’s.
These recorded the births of the children, and
interment of the deceased. The births had actually
been entered onto the IGI, but of course my 3x GGF’s
entry wasn’t there, and without that link there was
no way of connecting to his ancestors. There were
also the corresponding marriages recorded from the
registers of the Parish Church at Hitchin and King’s
Walden, as well as some of the earlier burials.