England, Kent, Parish Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records

England Kent

What is in the Collection?
The first of these collections consists of parish registers from the county of Kent for the years 1538-1911. Availability of records vary by year and locality.

What Can These Records Tell Me?
The following lists indicate the normal information given in each type of parish register record. Many records may provide more information than is listed, as parish priests often provided additional information in their register entries, as can be seen in the examples below.

How Do I Search the Collection?
Before beginning a search in these collection, it is best to know the following information:

No matter the search method, this information is the best way to identify the correct person, though other information may be used if the name, location, and date are not all known.
 * Full name of the individual in question
 * General location of the event
 * Date range for the record

Search the Index to This Collection
To find a person in the collection index using information which is already known, follow these steps:
 * 1) Go to the landing page for this collection.
 * 2) Fill in the requested information and click Search. This should return a list of possible matches; if not, see the I Can't Find the Person I'm Looking for, What Now? section below.
 * 3) Look at the individuals in the list and decide any of them are the right person. This may require examining multiple people before a match is located.

Browse Images of the Records
If granted the rights to view the digital images of this collection (see Image Visibility below), follow these steps to find the digital image of a specific record:
 * 1) Go to the collection browse page.
 * 2) Select the appropriate Name of County link.
 * 3) Select the appropriate Name of Parish link.
 * 4) Select the appropriate Event Type and Year Range (with Volume) link to go to the images.
 * 5) Look at the individuals listed in each record and decide any of them are the right person. This may require examining several images before a match is located.

Some of the records in this collection may be written in an old script that can be challenging to read. Refer to BYU’s Script Tutorial for assistance with reading the records.

Image Visibility
Whenever possible, FamilySearch makes images of digitized records available for all users. However, the rights to view images on this website are ultimately granted by the record custodians. Due to their restrictions, the images in this collection are not available for general viewing, but may be accessed at the Family History Library or at a local Family History Center.

For additional information about image restrictions, please see the Restrictions for Viewing Images in FamilySearch Historical Record Collections page.

I Found the Person I Was Looking for, What Now?

 * Make sure to fully transcribe and cite the record for future reference; see below for assistance in citing this collection.
 * Use the information which has been discovered to find more. For instance, use the age listed in the record to estimate a year of birth, if that is yet undetermined.
 * If in the appropriate period, use the information which has been discovered to find the individual in civil records. Particularly useful for research in nineteenth-century England are the England Census and the England Civil Registration records.
 * Continue to search the index to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives. Remember that family members often appear on an individual's vital records, such as in the role of witnesses to a marriage.

I Can’t Find the Person I’m Looking for, What Now?
For additional help searching online collections see FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.
 * When looking for a person with a common name, look at all the entries for the name before deciding which individual is correct. Use other information, such as place of birth, age, occupation, or names of parents, to determine which candidate is the correct person. If listed, a personal title may be a clue to property ownership or occupation, either of which might be noted in other records.
 * Check for variants of given names and surnames. An individual might appear under a different name in a record for a variety of reasons:
 * An individual might have been listed under a middle name, nickname, or abbreviation of their given name.
 * Spelling was not standardized for much of the period of this collection, so names were often spelled as they were pronounced. Pay attention to how the name should have been pronounced and try spelling variations that could have that pronunciation.
 * Some women reverted to their maiden names after the death of their husbands.
 * Vary the search terms. For example, search by either the given name or surname to return broader list of results which can then be examined for matches. You might also try expanding the date range; this is especially useful in searching baptismal records, as it was not unusual for a child to be baptized weeks or even months after birth.
 * Search the records of nearby locations. In the period of this collection, most people never moved more than 20 miles away from the place of their birth, though smaller relocations were not uncommon. For this particular collection, this step may require finding records in the bordering English counties of Sussex to the south, Surrey and Middlesex to the west, or Essex across the estuary of the River Thames to the north. If the individual lived in the northwestern area of Kent, a thorough search of London records might be necessary.

Known Issues with This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):

Image Citation: