Way back in 1536, England’s King Henry 8th decreed that parish records should be kept. The scope of such an undertaking meant that a record of baptisms, marriages and burials would be recorded. To a researcher, this was golden! One has to understand that in history, the searching must be done by locating Bonafide documents that establish the life and lineage of an ancestor.
The image for todays blog is the earliest document I have ever found. It is the May 20 1548 baptism of Valentine Austen at Adisham, Kent.
