Church register

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977 · 1588–1977

FamilySearch · FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/

Denomination: Non-conformist
Place: England and Wales
Register type: mixed
Years covered: 1588–1977
Archive reference: RG 4-8
Provider: FamilySearch
Form accessed: index

familysearch.org ↗ retrieved 2026-09-08 Added manually

FamilySearch's index to the registers surrendered to the Registrar General in 1840 and 1857 and now held at The National Archives as RG 4 to RG 8 — the birth and baptism registers of Protestant dissenting congregations, Roman Catholic missions, the Society of Friends, and the two central registries (Dr Williams's Library and the Wesleyan Metropolitan Registry). Index only: it gives the event, the date, the parish or town, a page number and the parents, but NOT the denomination, the chapel or the RG piece — those are on the register image, which is at Ancestry and on microfilm. Because dissenting registers record a date of BIRTH where Anglican registers of the period record only a christening, an English 'baptism' index entry that carries a birth date is a strong sign the entry belongs to this series.

Cited by

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977 Page 9 · Date 27 February 1806 Secondary

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977 · 1588–1977

For “Born” 27 FEB 1806 of Samuel Finch

Samuel Finch | Event Type Birth | 27 February 1806 | Event Place "-, Rayleigh, Essex" | Page Number 9 | Father William Finch | Mother Mary Finch

Quoted field by field in the index's own order. This is the first citation the birth event has carried, and it resolves the standing puzzle: a full sweep of the FreeREG transcript of Rayleigh Holy Trinity holds seventeen Finch baptisms 1790-1835 and none of them is a child of a William and a Mercy, so the entry was never in the Anglican register — it is in the non-parochial series. Note that the event type here is BIRTH, not christening, which is what dissenters' registers record. The index does not name the chapel or the RG piece; the register image would. The mother is indexed 'Mary Finch': the RG4 index repeats the husband's surname for the wife, and Mary for Mercy is a routine reading of an abbreviated form — every other source for this couple, including the passenger list on which Samuel himself was the informant, says Mercy.

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977 Page 9 · Date 27 February 1806 Secondary

England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8), 1588-1977 · 1588–1977

For William Finch & Mercy Walker

Samuel Finch | Event Type Birth | 27 February 1806 | Event Place "-, Rayleigh, Essex" | Page Number 9 | Father William Finch | Mother Mary Finch

The same row, cited here for the parents. It is the fourth independent naming of this couple as Samuel's parents — after the 1849 St Vincent passenger list ('Father Wm, Mother Mercy'), the FamilySearch christening index ('William Finch, Mercy Walker') and the cemetery index — and the first from an official register series. It also tells us where to look for the rest of their children: whichever Rayleigh congregation kept this register, its baptisms are the sibling set, and the Anglican register demonstrably is not.