Local historian Di Lockley researched a publication to allow those with a family history, linked to the village of Markfield, a chance to view the names in the very first Parish Register from St Michael’s Church, which dates from 1571 to 1784. Information was compiled after scanning through innumerable fiches of the original leather-bound register at the County Record Office at Wigston.
Many of the entries have suffered the ravages of time and some names have vanished in faded page edges, whilst others suffered events of the time and drowned in ink blodges.Â
There are 354 marriage, 1,399 baptism and 1,125 burial entries included within the surname charts.
The most common Christian names were John, Thomas, William, Ann, Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth, John, Mary and Thomas took up 10% each of the 1,382 babies’ names. Of the 1,202 named fathers, 26% were named John and half of the 1,024-named mothers were either Elizabeth or Mary. Â
Out of 639 surnames, 371 occurred only once. Some families had greater residential stability than others, but many more villagers may have lived most of their long lives in the village without even managing to achieve one entry.Â
The printed publication has been re-formatted and can be downloaded as a PDF file.