In 1612 the first Baptist church was established in England by Thomas Helwys. Their ideas were based on the rejection of conventional doctrines of predestination and restricting baptism to those old enough to believe. The group became known as the General Baptists because they thought that anyone could be saved.

The Particular Baptists formed in 1633 believing in predestination and redemption only for particular believers. The Strict Baptists believed that only the Godly were allowed to receive communion. In 1770 the General Baptists were continued by a new group known as the New Connection General Baptists. This group was influenced by the Evanglical Revivial led by John Wesley. Other General Baptists (sometimes called the Old Connexion) were influenced by the rise of unitarian theology (rejection of the belief in the Trinity).

In 1812 the Strict and Particular Baptists came together to form the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland and tried to promote closer links between various parts of the sect. This eventually resulted in a merger between the Particular Baptists and the General Baptists of the New Connexion in 1891 when they also joined the Union.

Early Baptist records have suffered from the desire of individual congregations to act fairly autonomously. However regional and national assemblies were developed as well as a central General Baptist Fund. The regional associations performed administrative functions providing, amongst other things, arbitration between individual churches and liaison over the exchange and supply of preachers.

Obviously baptism registers have great significance for this group. Bear in mind that they continued to take the principle of baptism for mature believers quite seriously and the registers often include details of the individual's birth.
Another source of information are their membership records.

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Transcripts of some Nonconformist registers pre-1837
are available on our website.