Parish registers online
Nearly 650,000 Berkshire baptisms and marriages are included in the IGI at FamilySearch but not all parishes are included (you can see the coverage here).
Findmypast has extensive indexes of marriages and burials provided by Berkshire Family History Society, but no baptisms. There are approximately 56,000 baptisms and 26,000 marriages at Ancestry.
The volunteers of FreeREG have transcribed some of the registers for 15 Berkshire parishes. There is currently no OPC project for Berkshire.
Births, marriages and deaths
Registration districts in Berkshire
There are 284,465 births, 95,781 marriages and 165,058 deaths in the local indexes for Berkshire. The names of both spouses are shown in the marriage indexes and the age at death is shown in the death indexes from 1837 onwards.
Pre-1841 censuses
Binfield 1780-1801, Blewbury 1811, Brightwalton 1768, 1790, 1821, Brightwell 1801, 1811, Brimpton 1822, Buckland 1799, Caversham 1821, Coleshill 1815, Combe 1782, 1788, 1789, Cumnor 1811, East Hendred 1821, 1831, Hampstead Marshall 1801, Hungerford 1825-35, 1828-31, Milton 1838, Newnham 1811, Pangbourne 1801, Sonning 1821, Tilehurst 1801
Also consider....
- Reading Local History Library has an extensive collection of Electoral Registers
- The Rifles (Berkshire and Wiltshire) Museum
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
Key Berkshire resources
Berkshire Family History Society has 6 branches, which meet at Adingdon, Bracknell, Newbury, Reading, Windsor, and Woodley. The society sells CD ROMs with baptisms, marriages, and burials, and there is a CD ROM index of the Archdeaconry of Berkshire Probate collection which includes 39,000 names.
Berkshire Record Office is in Reading and you will need a CARN card (one can be issued on arrival provided you have suitable identification). Apart from parish registers, Poor Law records, Quarter Sessions records, and pre-1858 wills, the BRO holds the records of over 800 schools, hospitals, and other institutions.
