Parish registers

Parish registers record baptisms, marriages and burials in Church of England parishes. They are still being created today.  For links to parishes' official websites and maps of current parish boundaries please see https://www.achurchnearyou.com

Parish registers are essential sources for family history.  The Essex Record Office (ERO) holds registers from over 400 parishes, covering the present county of Essex, including Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, and also those parts of north-east London that used to be in Essex. Most parishes have registers from the 17th or 18th century onwards, but some go back to 1538.

Essex Archives Online includes images of all registers of baptisms, marriages and burials that have been deposited either in the ERO or with our partners at Waltham Forest Archives.  It excludes only baptism registers less than 16 years old and marriage registers from after 1957.

Please note that these images are not indexed on our site, except by place and date range. However, Ancestry has created name indexes to most of our images of parish registers, except the very latest ones. The indexes cover baptisms 1538-1918, marriages 1538-1935, and burials 1538-1994. Ancestry is a subscription site, but you can see it free of charge in the Essex Record Office or in any Essex library.  Users of these indexes on Ancestry can click through to Essex Archives Online and buy an emailed copy of any particular indexed image. This single-image service is quite separate from our subscription scheme.  Subscribers do not have free access to the click through service, but they may also find the indexes useful for identifying the entries that they need.

Many partial indexes are available elsewhere. For some free examples see FamilySearch or FreeReg.  Other indexes, such as the National Burial Index, may be available on CD or by subscription online.

To find out what registers we hold, and to identify images available, select the first letter of the parish name in the list below, and then the parish and church that you need. 

The lists show

• all the registers of baptisms, marriages, burials or banns from Anglican or other churches, or from cemeteries, and any transcripts of them, that are available through the ERO, and
• the formats in which the records are available: either as digital images, or as microfiches or microfilms, or - if no copy exists - as original documents.  Only items marked 'digital images' are available in that form; otherwise, clicking on 'View' will simply show you the catalogue entry for the document.

Until 1812 many parish registers covered more than one type of event.  These registers will appear in the lists several times, but with the same reference each time.

To see images of parish registers online, please register and buy a subscription.  Images are free to view in the ERO Searchroom.