Prior to 1550 there was no official recording of births, marriages and deaths. The only records that were kept were Inquisitions Post Mortem at the death of a person owning property. These detailed not only the lands a person held but also detailed information on relationships especially the eldest child who would inherit these lands.

From around 1550 all births, marriages and deaths were recorded in Church Parish Registers. This was the only recording of these events and by law was supposed to happen. However many of the early records have been lost, often because of a fire in the church or being eaten by vermin. . Bishops Transcripts are contemporary copies of the Parish Registers - that is, copies made in the parish in the same year as the original parish register entries. Under an Order made in 1598 it was stipulated that within one month of Easter each year, the churchwardens were to send to the Diocesan Registry (that is, to the Bishop) a copy of all the register entries for the preceding year. Bishop Transcripts were not as reliable as the original church records as they were copied and often contained many inaccuracies.

The central recording of births, marriages and deaths was started in 1837 and is one of the most significant resources for genealogical research. The Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales was for many years called The St Catherine's House Registers as this is where the records were kept for public use. Until recently these could be viewed at St Catherine's House in London. These were initially handwritten into very large books and extracting information from them was quite an experience. Each name was recorded in alphabetical order and each year by quarters, so transcribing the Yeo names meant looking in four large books for each year. By the time you had reached for the next book, someone else had taken your place at the table used for searching. Now all of these can be viewed on-line.

My collection of Yeo records has been accumulated over many years using numerous sources but are an invaluable source of information which should be shared . Many of the parishes have not be IGI'd (International Genealogy Index) so I have transcribed these from original registers or BTs. In the 1837 - 1912 Birth & Marriage indexes I have added additional information where known, such as parents or spouse's names. From 1913 the Marriage Indexes record the spouse's surname or maiden name and the birth indexes the maiden name of the mother.

Many of the databases are large so PDF format enables people to navigate them easily using the bookmarks and pages and viewing can be set to any size using the percentage key.