Those
of us who research our families in Europe have found a great deal of
information, particularly for ancestors beyond three or four generations back,
in church records such as baptism, marriage and burial registers. As I pointed
out in blog posts of 19
April 2016 and 3
May 2016 concerning Historical Trends in Parish BMD Register Entries, the
completeness of information in ecclesiastical records began to wane in the latter 19th century. For the
areas of England that I have looked at in detail, I thought it might have to do
with movement away from the Church of England as well as the emphasis on civil
registration of vital events.
I
recently came across an interesting website on Wikipedia called Religion in the
United Kingdom.
I thought it might shed some light on the questions of whether the church was
losing its relevance, at least in terms of the recording of those vital events.
The
plots of baptism, marriages and burials from Church of England registers for
the parishes of Plympton St. Mary and Plympton St. Maurice in Devon in my
previous blog posts showed a marked decline in entries beginning in the
mid-1800s. Civil registration had of course begun in 1837 but that did not
immediately halt the trend. I thought a part of the answer might lie in the
country becoming more multi-cultural.
Certainly
over the last two centuries there has been an influx of immigrants from other
parts of the world into Britain. Unfortunately detailed statistics have only
been kept for the most recent decades. Census records show the
percentage of foreign-born residents of Britain was quite small until the
middle of the 20th century, though, so immigration does not explain the drop
in baptisms or church-related marriages and burials.
The
2011 United Kingdom census offers some interesting statistics as do British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys. Both sets of
data show that religion is still very much a part of the lives of most citizens
– 67% of the total population. Of those, 60% indicated they were Christian.
In
a more detailed 2009 BSA survey concerning religions, only 19.9% of those
surveyed (40% of those with a religion) said they belonged to the Church of
England. Over half of the people (50.7%) said they were not religious at all.
The proportion of Church of England members dropped further by 2015, to just
17% of those with religion.
 |
Time
series from the British
Social Attitudes Survey showing the
religion to which people consider themselves to belong
These
last two groups probably account for most of the decline in entries in the
Church of England registers. Over two hundred years ago, almost all of the
people of England were associated with the Church of England and had their
important life events recorded in the registers. Many, of course, were forced
by law to do so even if they belonged to a non-conformist group since, for so
long the Church of England was almost an arm of the government. Notwithstanding
that, the church records offered a very accurate view of the communities in
terms of births and deaths.
Surveys
such as the BSA and analyses of census results shown on the Online
Historical Population Reports Website are great resources to find out about the
makeup of communities from the past. Not only do they summarize religious
connections but also tell a great deal about occupations, movement of people
across the country and immigration.
Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four
parishes in Devon, England. He has published a
number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively
Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society.
Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.
