In this section:

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  • Family History Research
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Family History Research

For all births, death and marriages since 1837, you’re almost certainly better off using Civil rather than Church records. The Family Record Centre provides access to some of the most important sources for family history research in England and Wales, including births, marriages and deaths and census returns. You can’t consult the registers themselves directly; instead you use the indexes to order certificates. There’s a long-running voluntary project to index the Victorian (1837-1901) records online, at http://freebmd.rootsweb.com.

For records before 1837, and just occasionally after that, church registers are your best option. These consist of baptism, marriage and burial records for every parish in the country, and have been kept since the mid-sixteenth century – though many of the earliest registers are no longer in existence, and those that do exist are often almost illegible and very scanty in terms of information. Later records are particularly useful: baptism registers recording parents’ names, and marriage registers giving father’s names, for example. But don’t forget that your ancestors may not have been members of the Church of England, or (more recently) may not have been married or buried by the church, or indeed baptized at all.

Parish records from the last few decades may still be kept in the respective parish churches, but the great majority of parish records from Guildford Diocese, including all the earliest, are kept at the Surrey History Centre in Woking. Staff at the Centre are happy to undertake simple, limited, searches on e-mail request; but for more protracted searches you’ll need to do the work yourself, or employ a local agent to do it for you.

However, many parish records from this country and throughout the world have been indexed by members of the Mormon religion (thanks to their convenient belief in converting people posthumously). The results are accessible at the online International Genealogical Index, which forms a good starting point for pre-1837 research. You should be aware, however, that the records are neither complete nor always entirely accurate; and references should always be checked against the original records when possible.

Obviously, there are many other sources of information for tracing your Surrey ancestors, including the ten-yearly censuses since 1841, local directories etc. Good genealogical sites for advice and further research include Genuki, the Society of Genealogists and GenForum.

Guildford Diocese itself holds no records which are likely to be useful to you, and so for further information you should contact one or more of the agencies listed above. Happy hunting!