Find your ancestors in Ryedale Baptisms

Discover your ancestors today through the Ryedale Baptisms. Explore over 6,000 baptism records across the Ryedale district in North Yorkshire.

Each record includes a transcript of the original baptism records. Parish records are a fantastic resource for your genealogical search. Parishes began keeping baptism records years before civil registration. The details in each transcript can vary depending on the parish and the age of the document, but most will include:

• Name
• Baptism date
• Birth date
• Residence
• Mother’s first name
• Father’s first name
• Father’s occupation
• Place
• County and country
• Minister
• Notes

Notes add additional information about either the child or the parents; such as, identifying the child as illegitimate or explaining that the individual is participating in an adult baptism.

Discover More about the Ryedale Baptisms

Ryedale is located in North Yorkshire, England. The records includes nine parishes across the Ryedale district including Rosedale, located in the centre of the North York Moors. The Moors became a National Park in 1952. The Ryedale district was created in April 1974 by the Local Government Act, 1972.

To assist you will your research we have included a list of the parishes and years included in this collection.

Children born outside of marriage

In England, the 1235 Statute of Merton states that “He is a bastard that is born before the marriage of his parents.” The use of the word “bastard” continued through the 16th century, with the Poor Law of 1576 forming the basis of English bastardy law. It aimed to punish the child’s unmarried mother and putative father and to relieve the parish from the cost of supporting the mother and child.

The language changed in the 20th century, with the introduction of the Legitimacy Act 1926, which legitimized the birth of a child in England and Wales if the parents later married each other. The act refers to the child of unmarried parents as “the illegitimate person.”