Registers are usually kept by county record offices. The best national collection of transcripts and copies of registers is at the Society of Genealogists at www.sog.org.uk/prc/index.

Because of increasing concerns over marriages that took place in dubious circumstances, Hardwicke's Act of 1752 laid down that all marriages had to take place in church after banns had been announced. Quakers and Jews, however, were exempt from having to marry in the parish church. One of the requirements of the act was that all marriages had to be entered into specially printed registers, which contained the following information:

Duplicate copy, called Bishops' Transcripts are also often found at county record offices. They were often poorly kept, so are not very reliable, but sometimes have information that is missing from parish registers.

Many registers and Bishop's Transcripts are included in the International Genealogical Index / Family Search.

Most record offices have copies of The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers (2nd ed., Phillimore and Co., 1995), which indicates where each register can be found, the dates it covers and where the parish is to be found.

Few records for nonconformists or Roman Catholics survive before the 18th century. Most registers up to 1837 are on microfilm at the Family Records Centre, with copies at the National Archives itself. Entries also appear on the IGI/FamilySearch. Later registers are either at local record offices or still with the church itself.