Acocks Green History Society
The Yardley Parish Registers from 1539 to 1676
The entries below cover births, marriages, and deaths in Yardley. The Bishop's transcripts have been used, as well as the registers in Birmingham City Archives in the Central Library.
This transcript of the Yardley Parish Register has been made by Jan Pick. We are very grateful for her permission to make it available here. Any use of the information here must acknowledge her, and any commercial use must be agreed with her first. Please contact the Society if you wish to approach her.
These records, and indeed those right up to 1732, together with Yardley Workhouse inmates records, can be purchased from the Birmingham and Midland Society for Generealogy and Heraldry. Choose the Worcestershire option on the left side of the page. The Society can also do look-up research for a small fee, using their extensive resources.
Searching the Parish registers successfully requires several approaches.
Absence of a record may mean that it is now illegible, not that it does not exist, and going to the original registers with a particular name in mind may make an illegible entry legible.
Spelling is a very difficult issue. For example, we know that Cotterell can be Cotterill or Cottrell, and other variants as well, in modern times. In these registers you find Quotterell, Qtterell, Q°tterell, Q°ttrell, Cotterell, Cottrell, Cottrells, and even two variants within the same entry, for example John Cottrill the sonne of John Cottrel.
This makes browsing the register as a whole a sensible option, in case that brings to light something relevant. For this reason, we have divided it into three separate sequences.
The calendar year was not used to define the year until 1752. Some of these pages are confusing in terms of which year applies: the priests did not follow the rules themselves consistently in Yardley.