Parish Records
for
St. Leonard’s,
Shipham, Somerset, England

Below you will find a database of baptism, marriage and burial records extracted from the parish books of St. Leonard's, Shipham, Somerset. Although the records of St. Leonard's date from the year 1560, I have decided to begin my database with a later date due primarily to my lack of expertise in reading Middle English. Although the parish books are generally in good condition, researchers should be aware that missing bits of pages, faded ink, sloppy handwriting, and human error make certain entries and even entire pages difficult or impossible to decipher. Entries that have proven difficult to translate are accompanied by a question mark (?) to indicate uncertainty, and, as always, researchers should attempt to view the actual record themselves before making any final determinations. Researchers should also be aware that prior to 1752, England used the Julian calendar whereby the year began on March 25th. This changed in 1752 when Georgian calendar was adopted and the start of the year was moved to the more familiar January 1st. For this database, the old Julian calendar dates appear with the traditional double year slash, for example, 5 Feb 1729/30. In this example the event occurred in February of 1730 (Georgian calendar), but is reported in the registers as having occurred in February of 1729 (Julian calendar). You will also notice that baptism, marriage and burial entries have been combined and are presented in chronological order. Beginning in the mid-1750s, marriage banns began being recorded in separate books, whereas previously they were included on the same register pages as baptisms and burials.

Jeffrey L. Thomas
jltbalt1@comcast.net