A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), marriages (with the names of the partners), children, and burials (that had taken place within the parish) are recorded. Along with these vital details, church goods, the parish's response to briefs, and notes on various happenings in the parish were also recorded. These elaborate records existed for the purpose of preventing bigamy and consanguineous marriage. The information recorded in registers was also considered significant for secular governments’ own recordkeeping, resulting in the churches supplying the state with copies of all parish registers. A good register permits the family structure of the community to be reconstituted as far back as the sixteenth century. Thus, these records were distilled for the definitive study of the history of several nations’ populations. They also provide insight into the lives and interrelationships of parishioners. History England and Wales Parish registers were formally introduced in England and Wales on 5 September 1538 shortly after the formal split with Rome in 1534, when Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII, acting as his Vicar General issued an injunction requiring that in each parish of the Church of England registers of all baptisms, marriages, and burials be kept. Before this, a few Roman Catholic religious houses and parish priests had kept informal notes on the baptisms, marriages, and burials of the prominent local families and obits of holy persons. This injunction was addressed to the rector or vicar of every Anglican parish in England. By contrast, surviving Catholic communities were discouraged from keeping similar records out of the necessity of remaining hidden in a country now hostile to Catholicism. Cromwell's order had, however, nothing to do with religious doctrine or the papacy, but rather indicated the desire of the central government to have better knowledge of the population of the country. Church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has suggested that the measure may have been introduced as a means to identify infiltration into England by members of the outlawed Anabaptist sects: their adherents did not baptise infants due to their doctrine that only active believers could be baptised thereby excluding "dumb" or "unmindful" children. The book was to be kept in a "sure coffer" with two locks and keys, one held