Parish register

England ordered every parish to keep a register in 1538, and Anglican parishes in colonial Virginia were required by law to keep them. In the United States, Catholic parishes recorded baptisms, marriages and burials and often confirmations and first communions too.

Registers were kept by each congregation, not by a central office. To find one you need the church name and place; many survive only in a diocesan or denominational archive, and many colonial ones are lost.