Presbyterian Ancestors

The History

The Presbyterian movement was born in the early 1600's as part of the nonconformist movement in the United Kingdom.

The early members were puritans, led by John Calvin, who were disenchanted by the practices of the Church of England as they felt that they were still following the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

The mainstream Church of England still had many influential figures and so in 1662 the Act of Uniformity was passed by Parliament which required the mainstream book of common prayer to be used in all churches.

This caused vast resentment amongst Presbyterians and members of the other non conformist churches.

Opposition to the changes led to many Church of England clergymen being ejected from their churches and labeled as Dissenting Ministers. Many of these ministers joined the non conformist religions.

Church records for the years after 1662 often show several ministers in a short period as the religious power battle raged.

Presbyterians then held their services in private and many were fined or even imprisoned for their belief.

By 1689 things had changed again and the threat of prosecution was withdrawn but they were never again to be a major political and religious power in the land.

From then onwards Presbyterian congregations grew and formed churches in many communities.

In the 1700's they were the largest of the Non conformist communities  although this was short lived as by the 1800's the number of churches had declined in favour of other non conformist religions.

In 1972 the Presbyterian Churches came together with most of the Congregational Churches to form the United Reform Church .

What records can you find?

Each Presbyterian congregation ran its own affairs and so kept their own records.

In some cases this means that extensive local records of Birth, Marriage and Deaths as well as minutes of meetings, details of congregations etc exist with a wealth of information whilst other churches will have maintained virtually no records.

The persecution after 1662 means that there are virtually no records until after 1689.

Early Presbyterian records are held in the National Archives whilst later  records will often be found in County Records Offices

BMD Registers  have a copy of the General Register of Births of Children of Protestant Dissenters ( sometimes called Dr William Register) although searches are free there is a small fee to read the full results.

The  Unitarian Historical Society has many members interested in the history of the Presbyterian Church and its members who can provide you with some great knowledge.

The Surman index is an index of Congregational  and Presbyterian Ministers starting from 1650. A great place if your ancestor may have been a minister.

Although it is best known for Methodist material a substantial amount of material on Presbyterians is held at John Rylands Library at Manchester University. Most of the material requires a personal visit but a growing amount is going online.

Dr Williams Library holds information on the Presbyterian movement but little information of value for family history research.

The Harris Manchester College at Oxford was founded by Presbyterians and holds extensive Presbyterian records.

The Times  and the The Guardian/Observer databases online database contains many hits on a search for Presbyterians, including appointments of ministers