Do you have ancestors' from the English county of Hampshire? Explore this collection of baptism records. Learn the names of their parents, the year they were born, and the parish they were baptised in. View the parish list for all the parishes represented in this collection.
Do you have ancestors' from the English county of Hampshire? Explore this collection of baptism records. Learn the names of their parents, the year they were born, and the parish they were baptised in. View the parish list for all the parishes represented in this collection.
There are over 500,000 transcripts in this record set. While the amount of information varies, the records usually include the following information:
First name(s)
Last name
Birth year
Baptism date
Son or daughter
First parent’s first name(s)
Second parent’s first name(s)
Parish
These records were transcribed from the original Hampshire parish records by volunteer staff at Hampshire Genealogical Society.
Parish records are vital to researching your family history since censuses and official birth, marriage, and death records only go back to 1837, when civil registration was instated. However, the requirement for parish priests to maintain a weekly register of baptisms, marriages, and deaths began in 1538 following King Henry VIII's split from the Roman Catholic Church. A fine was put in place for failure to comply, and from 1733, entries had to be written in English instead of Latin.
Jane Austen, famous author of such beloved titles as Pride & Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, was born and baptized in the year 1775 in the parish of Steventon. The official date of her baptism was 17 December 1775. Her parent’s names were George and Cassandra. All of Austen’s siblings can be found in these records: James was baptized on 13 February 1765, George on 26 August 1766, Edward on 7 October 1767, Henry Thomas on 8 July 1771, Cassandra Elizabeth on 9 January 1773, Francis William on 25 April 1774, and Charles John on 23 June 1779.
Henry, the brother Austen was closest with, was Austen’s literary agent and Cassandra was Austen’s closest confidant. Charles and Francis became famous in their own right in the Royal Navy. Charles served in the French Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars, rising to the rank of rear-admiral. Francis eventually became Admiral of the Fleet, the highest rank for military naval officers.
You might notice that Jane Austen’s birth year is listed here as 1775 while in Hampshire Burials it is listed as 1776. This is an important reminder to take into account human error in historic records and, therefore, search a range of dates when looking for your ancestors.
Begin your search broadly. Start with just a name and a year.
If needed, you can narrow your search results by adding additional search criteria such as a place or parent’s name.
Try different name combinations if you are having difficulty locating your ancestor’s entry. Occasionally, the last name was not recorded. Try searching with only a first name and year.