Doncaster Council

Bishop's Transcripts

In 1598, parishes were ordered to make an annual return of all the baptisms, marriages and burials in the parish to the bishop of the diocese in which the parish lay. These continued to be made until the mid-nineteenth century, although there were lapses in local diligence, and a serious interruption during the upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century.

Bishop's transcripts (BTs) are an important supplement to parish registers because both can contain entries not found in the other. This is because in very many cases, draft registers were kept and used for compiling both the register and the BT. In this way, discrepancies arose and there can be differences in dates, surnames and given names, and sometimes entries can be found in one source which are absent from the other.

The original BTs for the Doncaster area are kept at the Borthwick Institute at York. However, Doncaster Archives has microfilm copies of many of these. Look at the table below to see what is available. You will need to book a microfilm reader to see them.