Parochial register

A parochial register , or at the origin register of catholicity, is a book in which are recorded the acts of membership of a Christian confession in a Paroisse.

Serving of a parish registers in this register the personal and dated acts which testify that a sacrament of Baptême or Christian Mariage was conferred on one or more members of its community. These registers existed initially in the Roman Catholic church, but are also today in the other Christian confessions.

By extension, one records the acts which testify to a Christian burial made by a priest, a Diacre or a minister of religion, with the one of late of the community.

B.M.S.

The parochial registers are thus of three types:

From where their usual name of “B.M.S.” (baptisms, marriages, burials) used by the genealogists.

The sacraments and rites which are registered there make it possible the community parochial to attest quality of Christian and his state of single person or anybody married. Indeed, the mention of a Christian marriage is added today in margin of the baptismal certificates, as it is for a long time the case of the acts of civil statue.

Parochial registers in France

In France, these registers exist since the end of the Middle Ages, but it is necessary to await the Ordonnance of Villers-Cotterêts to see their widespread use. The obligation made by Louis XIV establish them in double specimen made it possible to constitute less lacunar series since the middle of the 17th century.

Sometimes until there, only one register was used to record as well the baptisms, the marriages, as the burials, progressively. The obligation of the double specimen obliged the priests to dissociate the three series of parochial registers.

These registers of civil statue French former to 1790 became the property of the common Frenchwomen, and the old series of the clerk's office of the Bailliage that of the departments. For the small communes, these old B.M.S. are sometimes deposited with the Departmental records, in the series E-deposit.

Sometimes in the Diocese S, the current series of parochial registers go up with 1795 for oldest. Generally, the series are followed since 1802-1803 (return of the certificated worship). The priests must always establish them in double specimen, one for the parish, the other for the episcopal chancellery.

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