The information has been gathered from the parish record books that were kept in the Parish Church together with the yearly reports made by the Rector to the Bishop (the Bishop's Transcripts).
The data was extracted from the Gloucestershire Archives (GA) microfiche images of the parish records (GA reference PFC 291 IN + suffix) and the original Bishop's Transcripts (GA reference MF 602). Not every image is clear so there are many gaps. A searcher may have partial information (a date or a forename etc.) so we have included many partial entries that may be worth inspecting. In view of this we have included the microfiche suffix denoting which individual fiche the entry occurs on and a confirmation where there is a Bishop's Transcript entry.
The parish records are in bound books that cover many years each so they are rather battered and the older ones mouldy. The Bishop's Transcripts are small single sheets of parchment or paper folded tight for 'posting'. Many of these have been lost. The transcripts are in much better condition and are more clearly written that the parish records. One might suppose that all the Bishop's Transcript entries would have a corresponding parish entry and vice versa. We have not been able to achieve this linkage throughout. There are parish entries that appear to be eligible for transcript but don't appear. There are transcript entries that we have been unable to match with the parish records though some will come quite close. These mismatches have not caused us to delete any entry.
In 1812 a national system of records was introduced and the Bishop's Transcripts were abandoned.

Each entry follows a typographical pattern:
BOLD is used for surnames
ITALIC denotes some uncertainly
* indicates an entry is present but is illegible
Sm = Shipton Moyne
Blanks indicate absences
Y or yes indicates a Bishop's Transcript entry
(ed) indicates a note made by the editor and not original to the records

The records cover the period 1587 to 1839. However some are in such bad condition that our coverage is limited. There are periods where no records are available for baptisms and burials. Marriages, however are well covered.
Up to 1750 the records are compiled using the Liturgical Calendar. The liturgical year began on 25th March each year (Lady Day) and marked The Assumption, 9 months before Christmas. Therefore the records would treat 25 March as the first day. For instance, a Bishop's Transcript for the year to 1670 would cover a period 25/3/1669 to 24/3/1670. This transcript has attempted to convert the dates to the modern annual calendar throughout. In the earlier records this proved to be somewhat problematical where the writing is very obscure. We cannot claim that all dates are accurate but they will not be more than 1 year adrift. Dates that are not at all clear may appear as 1st January in italics.

The sections are separated by yellow paper notes and titles. The notes at the beginning of each section give more detailed information and some analysis.

Patrick T F Tierney
November 2014