Birch St Peter’s

Baptisms, burials and marriages 1560-1754 for Birch, Essex, are being transcribed by Helen Barrrell. Later entries, from 1755, are available on FreeREG. See Copford transcriptions as well: people from Birch and Copford appear in both parishes’ registers.

The church currently standing in Birch was built in 1850, and is now redundant. Sadly, plans are afoot for its demolition.

Notes from the parish register from 1608 to 1689, including payments, churchwarden names, and from 1689, the names and abodes of several residents.

Notes

• Baptisms: Most baptisms before 1584 don’t give the parents’ names. No baptisms 1597. Only two 1632. Only one 1641. Only one 1642. Only three 1644. Five baptisms 1645 don’t give a forename for the child. None 1647-1650. Only one 1651. Only one 1652. None 1653. Only one 1654. None 1655-56. Only one 1657. Only one 1658. Only one 1659. Only two 1663, entered out of sequence. Only one 1668, only one 1669. 1670-1675 were recorded, but out of sequence, among burials from the 1680s. Only one 1677. Only two 1678. Only one 1715.
• Marriages: None 1567, 1569, 1577, 1590-1598, 1603, 1607, 1624, 1631, 1634, 1636, 1641-42, 1648-1662, 1664, 1666-1678, 1689, 1693-94, 1698, 1702-1703, 1712, 1715.
• Burials: None 1574, 1592-94, 1601, 1603, 1634, 1648-1659.
• There are usually only about three marriages a year at most, but eight couples were married at Birch in 1640.
• The plague comes to Birch: three people were buried in Birch in 1665, with a note beside their names to say they died of the “pestilence” – the plague. They were: Mary Draper, 18 Sep; Richard Spurgeon, 2 Oct; William Nach, 7 Oct.
• The abandoned soldier’s wife: on 17 April 1709, a baby called Elizabeth was baptised in Birch. She was the “daughter of Elizabeth the wife of Daniel Aymes (who went away a soldier and was not heard of) by one Davie of Aldham.”