How to write the history of a parish

by J. Charles Cox

Personal History.

The pedigrees and brief particulars of the Nobility can be readily found. The most useful standard works are Dugdale’s “Baronage,” Collins’ “Peerage and Baronetage,” Banks’ “Dormant and Extinct Baronage,” and the “Baronagium Genealogicum,” or pedigrees of English Peers, in five folio volumes, by Joseph Edmondson. Burke’s “Landed Gentry” gives much information with respect to the principal families of commoners, but the earlier genealogical statements that he prints are often purely mythical. Several indexes to the many thousands of printed pedigrees that are scattered up and down in topographical and other works have been published, of a more or less faulty and incomplete description, but a work of this class, now (1879) in the press, entitled “The Genealogist’s Guide,” by Mr. George W. Marshall, promises to be all that can be desired.

But a large portion of family history and pedigree, which will often be essential to the elucidation of the monumental history of a parish, to completing the links in lists of the lords of the manor, or furnishing particulars with regard to smaller landholders, yet remains in MS. The most accurate of such MSS. are at the College of Arms, and are not ordinarily accessible except on payment of fees; but there is a fine collection of heraldic visitations at the B. M., the chief of which are among the Harleian MSS.

Heralds’ Visitations are said to have commenced in the reign of Henry IV., but it was not until 20 Henry VIII. that a commission proceeding from royal authority was issued. From then until the latter half of the seventeenth century, visitations were made every twenty-five or thirty years. The register books, kept by the heralds and their assistants, contain the pedigrees and arms of the gentry of the respective counties, and are often also illustrated by copies and excerpts from charters and private documents. Many of these books are lost, and the rest scattered throughout public and private libraries. The archives of the College of Arms have the most important collection, and next comes the B. M. There are a large number at the B., fifty-four volumes in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and forty in that of the Queen’s College, Oxford. The earliest heralds’ registers for the counties of Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucester, Hampshire, Kent, Notts, Oxford, Surrey, Sussex, Wilts, Worcester, and Yorks, are of the year 1530; for Berks, Devon, and Somerset, 1531; for Cheshire and Lancashire, 1533; for Essex and Herts, 1552; for Suffolk, 1561; for Lincoln, 1562; for Leicester, Norfolk, Stafford, and Warwick, 1563; for Hunts, and Northampton, 1564; for Beds, and Bucks, 1566; for Derby, Hereford, and Salop, 1569; for Middlesex, 1572; for Cambridge, Durham, and Northumberland, 1575; for Cumberland and Westmoreland, 1615; and for Rutland, 1618. The last visitation of several counties was taken in 1634, but the majority were visited in 1662-4; and the last of all was that of the county of Southampton, made by Sir Henry St. George, in 1686. The general genealogist and antiquary cannot but long for the issue of another royal commission, whereby the heralds might be empowered, as of old, to destroy all false and self-assumed arms, whether on carriages, plate, or monuments.

Sims’ “Index to the Pedigrees and Arms” contained in the Heralds’ Visitations in the B. M., is an accurate and useful book of reference. The “Manual for the Topographer and Genealogist,” by the same gentleman, is quite indispensable. Careful lists of family histories, of all the principal topographical works, and of all MSS. of worth in public libraries, are therein classified under the different counties.

Wills are too obvious a source of information to need a word of comment. At Somerset House is the most important and largest collection, viz., those of the province of Canterbury. The original wills in this office begin in 1404, and the transcripts in 1383. They are complete only from December, 1660. In the office at York, for that province, the wills begin in 1590, and the transcripts in 1389. Owing to the probate privileges enjoyed by the various ecclesiastical courts, there were not only registries for wills in every diocese, but numerous peculiar and exempt jurisdictions in each diocese. The dates at which wills begin in the different minor registries are so very varied, and their condition and facilities, or even possibilities, of search so multifarious, that it is impossible to give any useful abstract. The Report on Public Records for 1837, and Sir Harris Nicolas’ “Notitia Historica,” should be consulted. The power of probate was taken away from the ecclesiastical courts by the Act of 1857.

The little-known Recusant Rolls of the time of Elizabeth, give information as to the humblest as well as the wealthiest parishioner who refused to attend the services of the Established Church. These, and many other similar class of documents, relative to the fining and other grievous penalties attached to profession of the Roman Catholic faith, extending up to a recent date, are to be found at the P. R. O.

Records of Attainders, Forfeitures, Sequestrations, and Pardons, some from the time of Edward II., will also be found at the same office, and may be consulted with advantage by those tracing personal history, if there is any cause to suspect their complicity in any of the multitude of baronial feuds, rebellions, or religious persecutions that led to the existence of so large a class of offenders. Sims’ “Manual” should be consulted for exhaustive lists of this class of documents, as well as for numerous lists of Gentry and Freeholders of different dates, pertaining to their respective counties.

Muster Rolls, which give the names, rank, dwelling, and often other particulars, of those able to bear arms in each county, may be of interest to the local historian. The earliest of these returns, now at the P. R. O., are of the reign of Henry III.; there are great deficiencies up to the time of Henry VIII., but from that reign to the time of Charles II, they are very voluminous. Lists of Sheriffs, Members of Parliament, and Mayors of Boroughs, have been printed for almost every county from an early date, and can readily be found at public libraries. The names of lords of the manor, or other individuals connected with the special parish treated of, should always be collated with such lists, in order to see if they held any of these important offices.

County Records. The various documents that are or ought to be in charge of the Clerk of the Peace, relative to all the multifarious business transacted at Quarter Sessions, contain much that is of value relative to personal or local history. But it would only be tantalising to enumerate the different class of records that should be in the custody of the county officials, for in the great majority of cases they are in so much confusion as to be practically useless for any literary purpose. Among the exceptions may be mentioned Leicestershire and Derbyshire, in the latter of which counties they have been recently admirably arranged; and also, to a certain extent, Devonshire, the salient points of whose records have lately been published—see “Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne,” by A. H. Hamilton, a volume that aptly illustrates local government, and which is useful as showing the class of information that may be gleaned from such documents. They do not, as a rule, extend further back than the time of Elizabeth.

Borough Records. These are in many instances of great antiquity; some charters going back to the time of John. But their condition and value are much varied, and there is no trustworthy general report. It is hoped that a “Borough Records Society” will soon be formed for the publication of our Municipal Archives.

In the six Reports already issued by the Historical Manuscripts Commission the Archives of the following English boroughs have been reported on:—Abingdon, Axbridge, Berwick-on-Tweed, Bridgewater, Bridport, Cambridge, Coventry, Dartmouth, Faversham, Folkestone, Fordwich, High Wycombe, Hythe, Kingston-on-Thames, Launceston, Lydd, Morpeth, New Romney, Norwich, Nottingham, Rye, St. Albans, Sandwich, Tenterden, Totnes, Wallingford, Wells, Weymouth, Winchester, and York.

The Report of the Municipal Corporation Commissioners, 1835, gives certain information, more or less meagre, of all boroughs. See also Merewether and Stephen’s “History of the Boroughs and Municipal Corporations of the United Kingdom.”

Under the head of Worthies it may be worth while to consider whether the parish has ever had amongst its residents, or on its baptismal registers, the names of men of marked celebrity in any walk of life. Nuttall’s edition of Fuller’s “Worthies of England,” published in 1840, in three vols. 8vo., Wood’s “Athenæ,” and any good Biographical Dictionaries (e.g. Chalmers’), should be consulted.