Leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has today, 23 July 2014, added over 55,000 more Wiltshire parish baptism records to the website.
Spanning the years 1530 to 1886, the 580,361 baptism records now available on Findmypast comprise transcripts of the registers from over 150 Wiltshire parishes compiled by Wiltshire Family History Society.
The Wiltshire baptisms are unusual, as some of the earliest records in the collection are 484 years old. The records begin in 1530, eight years before the Vicar General of England, Thomas Cromwell, ordered all of the nation’s parish churches to keep a record of all baptisms, marriages and burials.
The county of Wiltshire has produced a number of notable individuals, including the architect Sir Christopher Wren, whose baptism record can be found within the collection.
The Wiltshire parish baptisms add to Findmypast’s already extensive collection of Wiltshire records that includes over 290,000 Wiltshire Memorial Inscription Index records, 67,000 Wiltshire Quarter Session Calendars and 20,593 Wiltshire removal orders.
Debra Chatfield, family historian at findmypast.co.uk, said: “We are particularly excited about the Wiltshire parish baptisms, as parish records kept before 1538 are relatively rare. Family historians, wherever they are in the world, can now search this historical goldmine and possibly trace their Wiltshire ancestors further back than ever before.“
The new records can be searched at: http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/wiltshire-baptisms-1530-1886
