Recently, we have been working on adding our many uncatalogued parish magazines to our online catalogue. Though we still have a long way to go, we thought now would be a great time to highlight what a useful, and often neglected, resource parish magazines are for both family and local history research.
What are Parish Magazines?
Parish magazines are monthly publications by the church which relate to one or more ecclesiastical parishes. They contain a variety of information relating to both the church and the wider community. Parish magazines have been around for a long time, with some parish magazines in our archive dating to the late 19th century. Parish magazines are still widely published today, and we are continually adding them to our archive.
Parish Magazines as a Family History Resource
Parish magazines are a great resource for family history, as they usually list the births, marriages and/or deaths which had occurred within the parish each month. Parish magazines often include extra details which may not be available in official documents, like parish registers, such as the location and time a wedding took place. Modern parish magazines often accompany these announcements with photographs of those mentioned. Death and funeral announcements may be accompanied by obituaries of various length, offering a unique look at the life of that individual and the way they were viewed within their community.
Many parish magazines also contain articles written by different members of the church and/or community. These articles focus on a variety of topics, such as farming, gardening, or sharing a recipe and offer a rare insight into their authors personality, which is often hard to find in official documents.
Parish Magazines and Local History
As parish magazines are published monthly, they are excellent snapshots into the history of a community. You may find bus timetables, church schedules, adverts to local events and updates from local schools and/or groups. From this, it is possible to gain an understanding of how a parish may have functioned in the past.
Local businesses would have put adverts in parish magazines and many still do today. This makes parish magazines another valuable resource for researching local history, as they can show how businesses may have changed over time in line with their community.
Parish magazines often report local, nationwide and even worldwide news. An example of a local news report comes from the Burton Bradstock parish magazine ‘Home Words for Heart and Hearth’ for August 1900 (PE-BBK/MG/1/10). This mentions a ‘disastrous fire on Saturday, July 14th, which destroyed three cottages’ in Burton Bradstock and congratulates the Bridport Fire Brigade, and their captain Mr Reynold, for putting out the fire.
An example of a report on a worldwide event comes from the St James Alderholt Parish Magazine for September 1914 (PE-ALD/MG/1/2). This follows the start of World War One and informs us that ‘Forty-three men from this parish are now serving in some branch of the King’s forces: one, Charles Verge, has come back from the Front wounded, but we are glad to hear that he is making good progress’. Later, in October 1916, this magazine published a list of Alderholt residents who had enlisted in the Army during World War One, as well as those who died at war.
These local, national and worldwide reports can be especially valuable when researching the history of a town or community, as they show key events, big and small, which have directly impacted a parish and its community.
Parish magazines are an invaluable resource when it comes to both family and local history. If a member of your family was an active part of the church and/ or community, you may find that their name appears within one or more parish magazines.
Or if you want to know more about your area’s history in general, parish magazines can give a great overview of day-to-day life in the past.