Parish Registers

The Abinger Parish registers are retained in a purpose-built database written by Philip Rawlings.

• Burial register 1559 - 1812 [A]
• Burial register 1813 -1846 [C]
• Burial register 1877-2019 [B]
• Burial register 2020- [D]
• Baptism register 1559-1812 [P]
• Inscriptions and Graves in Abinger Church and Churchyard, transcribed by John A Gibbs 1933 as recorded in 1934
• Surrey Manning & Bray, vol II(1809)
• Epitaphs of Surrey, A B Bax, ms. in Surrey Archeological Society Library (1890)

Reports

Reports from that database are shown below, other sorts/selections are available from the webmaster.

• Burial registers 1559-2019 sorted by date
• Baptismal registers 1559-1680 sorted by date
• Complete registers 1559-2019 sorted by name
• Statistics from the registers
• Records of graves with visible markers and/or recorded inscriptions
  
• Plot of the churchyard graves (in progress)

Burial Register 2020-

• Scan of burial register 2020- (.PDF)

Burial Register 1877-2019

• Scan of burial register 1877-2019 (.PDF)
• Original deposited with Surrey History Centre 30Sep20 on long-term loan.
• Parochial Registers and Records: Changes in the law from 1st January 1993

Burial Register 1813-1839

The original Abinger Parish burial registers for 1813-1839 were lost, but were earlier published, a scan is shown here.

• Scan of published burial register 1813-1839 (.PDF)

Burial Register 1599-1812

The Abinger Parish burial registers for 1599-1812 were published as The Parish Registers of Abinger, Wotton, and Oakwood Chapel, Co. Surrey (Mitchell Hughes & Clarke, London, 1928), a scan is shown here.

• Scan of published burial register 1599-1812 (.PDF)

Baptism Register 1599-1812

Originals lost but transcibed into a bound volume "This volume has been printed by a few friends in grateful memory of John Harcourt Chichester Evelyn (1876-1922), of Wotton House, Patron of these three livings, who lost his life in the service of his country; and also of Mrs. H. E. Malden (1852-1919), who transcribed the Register."

• Scan of published baptism register 1599-1812 (.PDF)

Notes to the Registers

• The registers from 1812-1887 are lost. Some inscriptions were transcribed by John A Gibbs in "Inscriptions and Graves in Abinger Church and Churchyard with Index" presented to St James' in 1934 Also from "Epitaphs of Surrey", A B Bax, ms. in Surrey Archeological Society Library (1890); these data are included in the current database
• 'Affidavit': in The Burial in Woolen Acts of 1660-1689 "No corps should be buried in anything other than what is made of sheep's wool only; or put into any coffin lined or faced with any material but sheep's wool, on pain of forfeiture of £5." Excepting plague victims and the destitute. In addition, an affidavit to that effect was required not later than 8 days after the burial. The act was repealed in 1814 but ignored after 1770.
• The Stamp Duties Act of 1783 required payment of 3d (£0.0125) to register a baptism, marriage or burial. Repealed in 1794.
• 'Certificate': a certificate brought (presented) affirming burial in 'woolen'. * Assumed, except otherwise stated, that a woman takes the surname of the husband (often burial register has only, for example, Joan the wife of John Smith).
• Assumed, except otherwise stated, that a child takes the surname of the father (often burial register has only, for example, Jane the daughter of John Smith).
• Spellings of names and places are idiosyncratic in the registers. As far as practicable, original spellings have been retained.
• Names are often prefixed with Goodman or Goodwife (abbr. Goody) in the earlier registers. Archaic form, known from 13th to mid-18th century. Signifies lower social standing than those addressed as Mr, Mrs, Mistress.
• See the History of Parish registers in England for the register requirements from 1538 (King Henry III). Our registers began in 1559 following a law enacted by Queen Elizabeth I.

Source Data

You can download (StJamesRegisters.xml) the entire registers dataset. Then open the XML file as an XML table, or in any XML-friendly application.

Parish Records Held at the Surrey History Centre