
Bible records are records which were kept by families on the inside pages of a family bible over the years. These would generally include a number of different details of one’s family history, such as the date of birth of individuals, marriages and deaths. It was considered acceptable to write on a bible in this fashion because these were events that involved religious ceremonies, i.e. baptisms and christenings, wedding ceremonies and funerals. Because these records were made on family bibles that were then often handed down from generation to generation, these bible records can often be a useful tool for a person trying to trace their ancestors, particularly where they extend back to the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for which time censuses or other records might not be available in some jurisdictions.[1]
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History of bible records

The history of bible records is very closely connected to the printing revolution. People have been annotating books for as long as they have been writing them, though there was a greater reluctance to do so in an age prior to the invention of movable print publishing in the mid-fifteenth century, as books were hugely expensive to produce, especially very large books like full-sized bibles. This began to change with the printing revolution, though slowly at first. Eventually economies of scale in the sixteenth century, made book-ownership an increasingly middle class pursuit and aspiration in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This would create an environment in which the number of families which had a personal family bible grew greatly between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Moreover, as they were cheaper to acquire, people became slightly more open to the idea of writing on one or two of the blank pages in the book.[2]
Combined with this was a changing attitude towards bible-ownership in general which was brought about by the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Prior to this bibles had been books written in Latin that in most parishes and communities were the preserve of the local bishop or priest who read from one at mass in a language which most people could not understand. Protestantism promoted the new idea that people should actually try to engage with and understand scripture, if possible by reading a bible written in their own native language. These ideas transformed the relationship which Europeans and their colonial offshoots in the Americas had with bibles. People began to acquire bibles, not just because they were cheaper owing to the printing revolution, but also because they wanted to read the contents of the Old and New Testament themselves.[3]
As these shifts took place, the concept of owning a family bible emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. And it wasn’t long before people made the leap to selecting a page to write out a number of personal family details on their bible, specifically the dates of the births, marriages and deaths of family members. This was not viewed as sacrilegious as these are events which are associated with religious ceremonies that include use of the bible, i.e. baptisms, marriage ceremonies and funerals. The practice became especially common in eighteenth-century America. This preoccupation with births, marriages and deaths was an American version of the fascination with pedigrees and lines of descent found amongst the nobility back in England where there was an aristocracy, unlike in the Thirteen Colonies/United States.[4]
By the nineteenth century the keeping of bible records had become a common enough practice in countries like the United States that some publishing houses that produced bibles began including a number of pages at the front or back of the bible which were largely blank except for headings reading ‘Births’, ‘Marriages’ and ‘Deaths’. This was encouraging people to use these pages to fill in their family details over time. The practice became even more common following this. Because of these practices, there are hundreds of thousands of family bibles extant today containing bible records and in America many states have set up databases encouraging individuals to provide photographs of these pages to act as repositories of bible records for posterity.[5]
Types of bible records

A person will find a number of very specific pieces of information in bible records, most of it of use to genealogists and those studying their family history. The key types of information that were generally written in bibles were as follows:
- The date of births of individuals and who their parents were.
- The date of baptisms of members of the family and who their godparents were.
- The dates on which marriages in the family occurred and who the bridge and groom were.
- The date on which the deaths of family members occurred.
While these were the most common records, there is an idiosyncratic nature to bible records and often individuals might include some other points of detail. Because of this, bible records can tend to have a more personal element to them and one’s family history than will typically be found in straight-forwardly bureaucratic demographic records like censuses, wills and documents of that kind produced at a governmental level.[6]
George Washington's family bible

There are many famous examples of bible records produced on family bibles. Perhaps one of the most well-known is the family bible of George Washington, the head of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and the first President of the United States. Washington inherited his family bible from his mother, Mary Washington. On a page inside the bible, in the middle of it, he inscribed a number of records relating to his family over the years. For instance, in either the early or mid-1770s, just before the American Revolutionary War commenced in 1775, he wrote of himself, “George Washington, son to Augustine & Mary his wife, was born ye 11th day of February 1731/2 about 10 in the morning & was baptised the 15th of April following. Mr Beverley Whiting & Captain Christopher Brookes godfathers and Mrs Mildred Gregory godmother.”[7]
A bible record like this is especially valuable because it gives details which might not be recorded on other religious records of the time, such as the hour of the day that Washington was born and also the names of his godparents. The latter are contained in some baptismal records of the eighteenth century, though not all. This bible record also points to Washington’s awareness of the different times systems in use in Europe and the Americas. The Julian calendar devised in Roman times was still being employed in Britain and with it the Thirteen Colonies, whereas the Gregorian calendar had been in use across much of Europe since the late sixteenth century. This meant that the day was eleven days out from what it was elsewhere in Europe and the Americas, i.e. the 11th pf February was actually the 22nd of September, while the year was 1732 in most places, though 1731 in the Colonies as the New Year was taken as being on the 25th of March (Lady Day) in Britain and the Thirteen Colonies until the adoption by Britain of the Gregorian calendar in September 1752. Washington showed his awareness of these Julian/Gregorian or Old Style/New Style dating systems by writing “1731/2.” This is an important point for genealogists and family historians consulting documents prior to September 1752, as dates of birth, marriage, death, etc. of ancestors may appear differently to what one expects on these documents. It all points more broadly to the value of bible records.[8]
Explore more about bible records
- Family Heirlooms records collection on MyHeritage
- Can’t Find the Family Bible? 10 Places You May Not Have Looked at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Family Treasures: Uncover the past at the MyHeritage blog
- Buried Treasure: Discovering hidden clues at the MyHeritage blog
References
- ↑ https://dp.la/news/family-bible-records-genealogy/
- ↑ Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (Yale, 2011).
- ↑ Richard Gawthrop and Gerald Strauss, ‘Protestantism and Literacy in Early Modern Germany’, in Past & Present, No. 104 (August, 1984), pp. 31–55.
- ↑ Livia Gershon, ‘Where Did Family-Bible Genealogies Come From?’, JSTOR Daily, 17 February 2022.
- ↑ https://archives.ncdcr.gov/researchers/collections/bible-records
- ↑ https://digital.library.sc.edu/collections/family-bible-records/
- ↑ https://www.mountvernon.org/education/primary-source-collections/primary-source-collections/article/the-washington-family-bible/
- ↑ https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/datingdocuments/juliangregorian.aspx