FamilySearch's aggregated index of English baptism and birth entries drawn from parish registers and bishops' transcripts. An index only: it gives names, dates, parish and parents but is not the register image, and its transcriptions of unusual given names are not always reliable. Individual records are addressed as https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:<ark>. Read signed in, in a browser.
Robert Nelson | England, Births and Christenings | Christening 25 August 1822 | Hawstead, Suffolk | Parents William Nelson, Sarah
FamilySearch index of the Hawstead parish register, read in a signed-in browser and relayed field-by-field; the register image was not seen. Strictly this dates the christening; no separate birth date is recorded in the series, which is why the birth event carries the christening date. The same entry is cited on the person and on family 32945 for the parent link.
Elizabeth Debenham | Christening 12 December 1819 | Whepstead, Suffolk | Parents John Debenham, Catherine Brownley Debenham
FamilySearch index of the Whepstead parish register. The christening is thirteen days after the birth date of 29 November 1819 carried on her record, which comes from the compiled profile and is consistent with it.
Name Mary Anne Debenham | Sex Female | Birth Date 12 Aug 1823 | Father's Name John Debenham | Mother's Name Catharine Brownley | Event Type Christening | Event Date 31 Aug 1823 | Event Place Chevington, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom | Event Place (Original) Chevington, Suffolk, England
FamilySearch index of the Chevington parish register, relayed field-by-field by the orchestrator from a signed-in browser; the register image was not seen. The register carries a separate birth date as well as the christening date, which is why her birth of 12 August 1823 is now a record rather than a compiled-tree date - and it matches the WikiTree profile exactly, showing that profile read the same entry.
The register entry carries a birth date distinct from the christening date of 31 August 1823, which is why this is a recorded birth rather than an inference from the baptism. Same FamilySearch index entry as the christening citation; the register image was not seen. Her age of 90 at death in 1913 agrees with it.
Robert Nelson | England, Births and Christenings | Christening 25 August 1822 | Hawstead, Suffolk | Parents William Nelson, Sarah
FamilySearch index of the Hawstead parish register, read in a signed-in browser by the orchestrator and relayed to me field-by-field; the register image was not seen. This is the record itself behind the parent link, which until now rested on the cemetery index's detail field and a compiled profile's report of the same entry. It joins the 1898 NSW death row (WILLIAM | SARAH | KEMPSEY) and the Java list's 'Father Wm Nelson | Mother Sarah' - three independent records now name the same couple.
Elizabeth Debenham | Christening 12 December 1819 | Whepstead, Suffolk | Parents John Debenham, Catherine Brownley Debenham
FamilySearch index of the Whepstead parish register, relayed by the orchestrator from a signed-in browser; image not seen. It settles the conflict flagged when this couple was created: her 1908 NSW death row names her mother ELIZABETH, but the register and the Kempsey West monument both say Catherine, and the register gives her maiden name Brownley in full. The death-row name is the informant son's error.
Father's Name John Debenham | Mother's Name Catharine Brownley
The record behind this child link. It is the second christening in this family read from the register series - her sister Elizabeth at Whepstead in 1819 named the same couple - and it confirms the mother's maiden name Brownley independently. The father was of Chevington, which is where this daughter was christened.
Samuel Finch | England, Births and Christenings | Christening Rayleigh, Essex | Birth 27 February 1806 | Parents William Finch, Mercy Walker
The same record, cited here for the parents. It is the third independent naming of this couple as Samuel's parents, after the St Vincent passenger list ('Father Wm, Mother Mercy') and the cemetery index, and the first to give the mother's surname in the same breath as the father — which the Rayleigh parish register's marriage of William FINCH to Mercy WALKER on 14 January 1802 supplies from the other direction. The parent link no longer rests on a compiler's note.
Susannah Wordley | England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 | Christening 25 June 1820 | Suffolk | Birth 28 November 1819 Glemsford | Parents Isaac Wordley, Sarah Grimwood
The FamilySearch results-list row, quoted field by field. It gives Sarah her maiden surname, GRIMWOOD — which no other source in this tree had, and which is where the third given name of her granddaughter Harriet Mary GRIMWOOD Finch comes from. THE FATHER'S GIVEN NAME IS CONTESTED AND THE PERSON ROW KEEPS ABRAHAM. Three sources say Abraham or Abram: the 1849 St Vincent list, on which Susannah herself was the informant; her 1864 Braidwood memorial ('dau/Abram & Sarah'); and FreeBMD's Abraham Wordley, died Sudbury district (which contains Glemsford) September 1848, six months before she sailed. Only this index says ISAAC — and FamilySearch's own Isaac Wordley of Glemsford married Mary Gridley there in 1809 and Catharine Hartley there in 1824 and died in 1841, so a wife Sarah about 1819 would have to be an unrecorded second wife between those marriages; no Wordley-Grimwood marriage is indexed anywhere. The likeliest reading is that the index has attached the wrong Wordley father. The mother is not in doubt. The Glemsford register would settle it. ADDED 2026-09-08, from the 1841 census of Glemsford (Ancestry 8978): (1) no Abraham Wordley in the parish at all; the only man of parental age with a comparable name is an Isaac WOODLEY b. abt 1756 living with a Catherine b. abt 1781, and there is no Sarah Wordley of the right age. (2) The Susan Wordley b. abt 1816 there, previously noted as a possible sighting of Susannah before she emigrated, is NOT her: she is 25 in the household of Thomas Wordley 35 (HO107/1011 bk 14, ED 5, f.15 p.23 line 14), and 1841 ages of 15+ were rounded DOWN to a multiple of five, so 25 means 25-29, where Susannah was 21 and would read 20. The household list read was truncated at about thirty rows, so neither negative is complete.
The same FamilySearch index entry, cited on the person for the birth date and parish now set on his record. Strictly this dates the christening, not the birth; no separate birth date is recorded in the register series.
The same index entry, cited on the person for the parish now set on her record. Her birth date of 29 November 1819 still comes only from the compiled profile; the register dates the christening thirteen days later, which is consistent.
Samuel Finch | England, Births and Christenings | Christening Rayleigh, Essex | Birth 27 February 1806 | Parents William Finch, Mercy Walker
The FamilySearch results-list row, quoted field by field. It independently confirms the birth date of 27 February 1806 that this tree carried only from the Australian Cemeteries Index compiler, and it confirms Rayleigh. It also settles, in favour of 1806, the conflict with the St Vincent passenger list, which made him 38 in March 1849 (born about 1811) — a shaved age, as assisted passages had upper age limits. His person row is unchanged; this citation is what now supports it.
William Nelson | Christening 23 April 1797 | Suffolk, England | Birth 21 April 1797
Recorded as a CANDIDATE and NOT adopted: his birth event 138767 keeps ABT 1797 and no parish is set. What is in its favour is that this is the ONLY William Nelson christening FamilySearch indexes anywhere in Suffolk for 1793-1802 - every other William Nelson of those years is Cumberland, Lancashire, Westmorland or London - and the year matches. What is against it is that the index row gives no parish and NO PARENTS, so it cannot be tied to Hawstead or Whepstead and cannot extend the line by a generation, which is the only reason to want it. The FamilySearch tree attaches it to profile M888-47H, 'William Nelson 1797-1847', but that is a user's judgement and not evidence. The register image, which would name the parish, is what would settle it.
Susannah Wordley | England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975 | Christening 25 June 1820 | Suffolk | Birth 28 November 1819 Glemsford | Parents Isaac Wordley, Sarah Grimwood
The FamilySearch results-list row, quoted field by field in the order the site shows them. It is the source of her exact birth date and of Glemsford as her birthplace, both of which agree with the St Vincent passenger list ('Glemsford Suffolk', aged 28 in March 1849) and with the age of 44 on her 1864 memorial. Quality 2: an index entry, not the register image. The father's given name here, ISAAC, is contested — the passenger list says ABRAHAM and her memorial ABRAM, and the Isaac Wordley whom FamilySearch has at Glemsford married Mary Gridley in 1809 and Catharine Hartley in 1824 and died in 1841, leaving no room for a wife Sarah about 1819. The full argument is on the citation of this same record against her parents' family; the person row keeps Abraham.
The evidence for the KATHARINE name row added in this proposal. Three register entries for this couple's children spell her three ways - Catherine (Whepstead 1819), Katharine (Whepstead 1821) and Catharine (Chevington 1823) - and all three are now name rows on her record so that a search on any of them finds her. The primary name is left as Catherine.