Births and baptisms: the use of Anglican baptism registers as a source of information about the numbers of births in England before the beginning of civil registration.

Abstract

Summary A major reason why the difference between the number of baptisms recorded in Anglican registers and the number of births occurring was becoming greater was the increasing delay between birth and baptism. More and more children died before they had been baptised, or in circumstances which caused their baptism to go unrecorded. As long as burial registration was complete, estimates of the extent of the shortfall between births and baptisms may be made from a comparison of baptism and burial registers. When burial registration, too, began to falter, resort must be had to indirect methods of estimating underregistration both of births and deaths. Estimates are given of the changing levels of underregistration arising from this cause at half-century intervals between the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. The exercise also brings to light evidence of the fluctuating level of infant mortality over the period and of changes in the relative importance of endogenous and exogenous mortality withi...