Parish Register
The
first transcription of the Cleobury Mortimer Parish Registers was privately
published by the Shropshire Parish Register Society in 1909.
This transcription was undertaken by Frances Baldwyn Childe, and she
clearly found the first surviving register, which covers the years from 1601 to
1637, hard to decipher. In her
introduction she describes it as ‘very illegible’.
It is a paper document and much torn, and most of the entries from 1635
to 1647 have been lost. The
second Register begins in 1648.
A
re-examination of the original register of 1601-1637 in comparison with the
Baldwyn Childe transcription revealed a number of inaccuracies, and as a result
a new transcription was made by Chris Potter.
This was much assisted by the use of ultra-violet which has shown up
entries previously doubtful or totally indecipherable.
Some omissions were also found.
The result is a fuller representation of the original, which is itself
apparently a copy of an actual contemporary, presumably parchment, register.
On its cover is the following: ‘A
true Copy of the Register of Clebury Mortimer as it was found in the Office at
Hereford Jany. 20th. 1697: unto the 97th Article we
present that the Queen’s Majestye is our Parson and our Vicar hath no Glebe
Land, but a house within a Close lieing within the Towne of Clibury.
The names of the Church Wardens Thomas Tiller
, John Wier
and six other
witnesses’.
This revised transcription will be available on this site shortly.