Pocklington Parish Registers

Pocklington’s registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials are deposited at the Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, where they can be seen on microfilm. Microfilm copies can also be ordered and viewed at Family Search Centres maintained by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 1777, Archbishop Markham ordered that the scheme for the registration of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials developed by the Rev William Dade in York should be followed in the Diocese of York. Some parishes never adopted the system. Some, like Pocklington, followed it fully for only a few years. A few, such as Selby continued it until the national scheme was introduced in 1813.

Using index cards, I tried to analyse Pocklington Baptisms and Marriages and published an article in 1990. ('The use of marriage horizons to study migration', Local Population Studies, 44, (1990), 52-5.) This can be viewed on line at :-
http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/PDF/LPS44/LPS44_1990_52-55.pdf

A copy of a baptism entry is shown in that article.

As part of a wider research project I later loaded parts of the parish registers onto data bases and these form the three spreadsheets below.
It should be stressed that they were designed as working databases to be used for work on my Leicester University PhD thesis – hence some of the idiosyncrasies. I would urge anyone intending to rely on an entry to check it at the Borthwick or at a Family Search Centre.

Baptisms.
In the column listing the sex of the child Son and Daughter are obvious. SBB and DBB indicates children born out of wedlock (Base Born). ST and DT indicates twins
I tried to link baptisms to marriages and, besides the Pocklington marriages, I used the indexes produced by York Family History Society covering the churches in the city from 1538 to 1837. They are now available from the Society on two CDs. (http://www.yorkfamilyhistory.org.uk/ ) On two occasions I refer to documents deposited at the then Humberside County Record Office. They are now held in the East Riding archives (http://www2.eastriding.gov.uk/leisure/archives-family-and-local-history/

Mary Crouch, whose daughter was born on 27th February 1788, is listed as an orphan from Ackworth Hospital. Ackworth was the northern outpost of the Thomas Coram Foundation.

Burials. The relationship of the deceased to a male family member is usually given. Wife, Son and Daughter are obvious. DT is twin daughter.
The high water table in the churchyard at Allerthorpe caused difficulties, hence perhaps the numerous burials from there.

Roger Bellingham 17 November 2013