How to access parish registers
In England, most original parish registers still reside locally although most will have been transferred to the local record office, rather than being kept by the parish church. View the Genuki website section on Church Records
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Parish registers from some parts of England are described in the A2A (Access to Archives) database - a good way to look for these is to search A2A database on the parish name.
In Scotland the records are held by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS). Microfilm copies are available in libraries and family history centres world-wide. For more information on GROS see the GROS partner page or the GROS website.
Nearly all the parishes in Wales have deposited their registers (apart from volumes containing recent entries) either at the National Library of Wales or at one of the county record offices. View the LLGC/NLW web page on Church Records.
Some returns of baptisms, marriages and burials, relating mainly to European and Eurasian Christians in India, Burma and other areas administrated by the East India Company and the Government of India are held by the British Library - copies of the contemporary indexes and microfilm of many of the registers may be consulted directly in the Reading Room. See the British Library website for details
