There are 11 surviving Parish Registers for St Laud's Church (apart from those currently in use). They cover the period from 1698 onwards. They are held at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury.
There is a gap in the Baptisms and Burials registers between 1798 and 1812. The registers before 1698 have not survived.
Every Parish was required to make a copy of the Parish Registers each year and send it to the Bishop. These copies are known as the 'Bishop's Transcripts', although in the case of Buckinghamshire they were actually sent to the Archdeacon. The Bishop's Transcripts for St Laud's are available for the period from 1576 to 1839, although many years are missing. They do, however, fill the gap in the Burials and Baptisms from 1798 to 1812, as well as 40 of the years from 1576 to 1697. Click here to view.
The St Laud's Parochial Church Council has given Sherington Historical Society permission to take digital photographs of each page in all the Parish Registers, for use in family history research. However, entries less than 100 years old (i.e. after 1912) have not been copied.
The original photos held by the Society are 2048x1536 pixels. The copies available on this web site are lower resolution to fit computer screens and facilitate download, so may lack some detail. They have been processed digitally to correct for fade and the contrast/brightness has been adjusted in order to improve clarity. The digital photos are generally much clearer than copies previously made by the older microfilm technology.
Photos have also been made of the Bishop's Transcripts.
Transcriptions for all the Registers are now available online, see list above.
The Buckingamshire Family History Society has compiled transcriptions of the Registers (and Bishop's Transcripts) up to 1901. A CD containing their database is available for purchase from the BFHS website for £10. Their data is accessed via a proprietary software application. If using Windows 7 or later, it is recommended that you check compatibility with BFHS. Note also that they have extended the modern year numbering convention retrospectively to dates between 1 January and 25 March for the pre-1752 period (when the Gregorian Calendar was introduced), which is rather confusing when cross-referencing their information with the original registers, as the year no longer matches.
Copies of the Parish Registers are also available on microfilm in the Milton Keynes Central Library and at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies in Aylesbury.
All the information on the St Laud's Parish Registers, the transcriptions, and photos are copyright and are made available for the purposes of private family history research only. They may not be republished in any form elsewhere without obtaining prior permission. Any use for commercial purposes is prohibited.