Baptism, Marriage and Burial records

Channel Islands Family History - baptism, marriage and burial records.

Several years ago, a team of volunteers transcribed the Church of England's baptism, marriage and burial records (1542-1842) for our 12 parish churches. These are available in the JFHS collection, in person at the Jersey Archive or digitised with the Jersey Archive Online Catalogue. Members of our Society are given a discount to become members of the Jersey Archive.

In 1842, a significant civil registration act was introduced in Jersey, establishing the official registration of births, marriages, and deaths (BMD). This system was put in place in 1842 to create civil registers, initially based on the existing Anglican church registers described above, with a duplicate copy of the records sent to the Superintendent Registrar in St Helier. This marked a shift from purely ecclesiastical records to a more formal, civil process for managing these life events, though some parish registers continued to use older, less detailed formats.

Digital access to records post-1842 registers remains to be completed, and work on these is ongoing at the Jersey Archive. Entries from all of the Church of England registers for baptisms & burials (1842-1924), marriages (1842-1949) and burials (1842-1924) are available online or in person.

When accessing post 1842 registers, please follow the steps & also note that the link will come up on a different tab on your computer so you can switch between the tabs :

1. Access: Jersey Archive Online Catalogue
2. Click ‘Church Records’ on the top left-hand side of the page
3. Go down to the Church of England records and click on the purple bar ‘Click here to discover the Church of England Records’
4. Go down to the square for each of the twelve parishes and click on the parish you want
5. On the green bar at the top of the page, you will see ‘advanced search’  - click on this
6. Under the Reference number, take the reference relating to the parish, which you will find just below the green box
7. Under ‘Person or institution’ put the surname of the person you are researching - all the people relating to the surname in that parish will come up in the list below.

Roman Catholic, Methodist and Independent churches can be accessed in the same way as church records.

Records for births, marriages and burials post 1924 or 1949 can be obtained either in person or by emailing the Office of the Superintendent Registrar or by calling in person at 25 New Street, St Helier, but the date of registration must be known. Our researchers at the Jersey Family History Society can help with a search for the date of registration.  The fee undertaken by our researchers is cheaper, than a search by Registrar staff.