Methodist New Connexion registers

In 1797 5,000 members of the Wesleyan Connexion, led by four preachers set up a New Connexion.  One of the reasons they gave for splitting away was their desire for baptism in their own places of worship by their own ministers. It took until 1823, however, for them to include instructions on compiling a Circuit baptismal register in their ‘General rules’.

Between 1797 and 1907 there appear to have 745 Methodist New Connexion places of worship. The first societies to join the New Connexion were in northern England, and as the map shows that that remained their area of strength. The map also indicates how the registers might be accessed, on the basis of county. The registers of 194 chapels are, at least partly, available online. The majority, however, may only be accessed in the record office in which they have been deposited. The best way of locating the original registers is access the National Archives catalogue at  http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and use “Methodist New Connexion” and the place in which you are interested, or the county, to find out where the original registers are held.

If a chapel has a register it will most likely be for baptisms. It was not legal to marry anywhere but a parish church until 1857.  Even then, the Registrar was required to be present, which seems to have discouraged chapels from registering to hold marriages. Most Methodist marriage registers date from after 1898 when ministers were allowed to act on behalf of the Registrar. Certificates obtainable from the General Registry Office, or local Registry offices, will tell you if a marriage took place in the chapel.

There are few surviving chapel burial registers.

All the surviving Methodist New Connexion baptismal registers from before 1837 have been digitised, and are available (for a fee) at http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/   Find My Past http://www.findmypast.co.uk/ or Ancestry https://www.ancestry.co.uk/

In the following list, these registers are referenced as RG4/….

All the main genealogical platforms (Ancestry, Find My Past and Family Search) have been working with record offices to digitise registers. The Methodist Church in Britain now gives permission for our records to be included in these collections, so expect to see more Methodist baptismal records appearing online. The counties where this has already happened are marked in black on the map. The attached document lists all the MNC registers available online in March 2026.