This was such an informative talk and over-ran its
allotted time but no-one minded.
If you cannot find ancestors in the Parish Records
- when they should be - it might be that they were,
or became, Non-Conformists. These groups were many
and varied, believing that God's Laws were there to
be obeyed not the laws of the State. Mr Gandy's
talk was designed to look, historically, at the
development of religions/worship other than the
Established Church.
Non-Conformity is a term used by the Church of
England to describe all other religions. Until
Henry VIII the whole country was nominally Roman
Catholic - when Henry declared himself to be
Head of the Church of England he put the State
directly in charge of Church affairs as opposed to
the Pope who was the direct representative of God.
It was not until the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9
that all religions could flourish alongside each
other without prejudice with one big exception - only
Anglicans (C of E) could hold high offices such as
MPs, Mayors, positions in University - or indeed -
could accede to the throne.
So who were the dissenters and how do they affect
us as family historians? The belief that only God's
Laws must be obeyed and not those of the State means
that baptisms, marriages and burials were not
necessarily recorded in the PRs as required by the
secular law of the land. If the rumour in the
family was that "so-and-so fell out with the
Church" then this was a possible reason for the
'lost' records.
We have the Presbyterians, Ana-Baptists, Baptists,
Congregationalists, Unitarians, Quakers, Methodists,
Mormons and several other splinter groups all being
formed at different times - these are the Non-Conformists.
Descriptions which follow are historical and not
necessarily those which appertain to today's
doctrines.
1. Presbyterians
were strict in behaviour, plain services with no
music and run by elected elders not by an imposed
hierarchy such as vicars, bishops etc.
2. Congregationalists
worshipped believing in total equality - they too,
had elected elders and saw no reason to obey State
decrees. In the late 20th century they merged
with the Presbyterians to become the United Reform
Church.
3. Baptists
believed only in adult baptisms and universal access
to salvation. All could be saved and some were
the chosen ones. (Hence no infant baptisms
recorded in PRs.)
4. The Quakers went
even further in believing everyone was equal and
there was no need of a set pattern of worship.
They had silent meetings with no-one speaking unless
called to do so with a message from God; they
believed rules were only to be obeyed if everyone
agreed - just one voice of dissent was enough to
throw out the law and start again.
5. John Wesley's teachings brought about the
Methodists who drew their members
often from the higher class, more intense Anglicans.
With the Industrial Revolution, power shifted away
from the countryside and townsfolk didn't necessarily
need to go the Church - unlike their country cousins
who came to rely upon the Church for poor relief
handouts etc.
The Mormon church - The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - came
into being in the USA in 1830 though it was not until
1837 that the first British Chapel opened in Preston.
They baptise their dead for those who have not had
the chance to perform this necessary ordinance while
living.
So, early BMD records were not always kept by the
Non-Conformists and our ancestors could easily vanish.
The SoG booklets "My Ancestors were: ...Quakers
...Methodists ...Baptists" etc are an excellent
guide to what does exist and their whereabouts in
Counties. All is not lost, of course, since
there are still records of Wills, taxes, voting
rights, apprenticeships and so on - we tend to lean
heavily on PRs and the IGI for guidance very often
and Michael Gandy's talk proved to show us how we
should look and think on a wider scale.
