Parish Registers

A guide to the parish registers we hold: which parishes and what dates.

This guide tells you which registers we hold for each Dorset parish, and what dates they cover. To access the information within the registers, you will need to visit us or make use of our research service.

You can find out more about parish registers, and how they can be used for family history, by visiting the relevant section of our First steps in family history guide.

To prevent the deterioration that would be caused by regular handling, access to most of our parish registers is through microfilm copies.

The Dorset Parish Register Guide does not give details of gaps in the registers or entries (sometimes registers are missing, sometimes there are no entries for several years). Please contact us or consult our online catalogue for a volume-by-volume listing of each set of parish registers.

Only registers which are held in the History Centre and/or available on microfilm or microfiche are listed. If you can't see a parish you were expecting to find, it may be that this parish falls under another county (opens in a new window).

Those parishes with an asterisk by their name were formerly part of Hampshire. We hold microfilm copies only for the dates shown. The original registers are held at Hampshire Archives and Local Studies (opens in a new window).