BIRTHS AND

BURIALS.

BURIAL NOTE.

[To be properly filled up, inserting the description, occupation, or other usual addition and residence of the deceased.]

This Note to be delivered by the Grave-Maker, as soon as may be, to the person who signed it, or to be forwarded to the proper meeting, for the purpose of making the registry.

4

REGISTRY.

5

In every monthly meeting, a suitable friend is to be appointed as registrar of marriages, births, and burials. The registers of births and burials are to be made agreeably to the following plans; and they are to be entered by the friend appointed as registrar, from the birth notes and burial notes, after they have passed the monthly meeting.

No mistake that happens to be made in a register, is to be erased, but to be corrected by drawing a line through the same, so as to leave it legible; and what should have been written, is to be inserted near it, and to be authenticated by the registrar's signing the initials of his name thereto. No contractions are to be used either in filling up any of the foregoing forms, or in the registers, except that in the latter, dates may be expressed by figures.

Forms of the Monthly Meeting Registers of Births and Burials.

6

General

Birth notes and burial notes are to be taken to the monthly meeting, there read, and the duplicate (or triplicate, &c. as the case may be,) birth notes compared, and all signed by the clerk; one birth regulations. note is to be delivered to the registrar, and the other or others given to the parents: the registrar, after entering the notes in the book kept for that purpose, and filling up the index, is to forward them to the quarterly meeting, at least once within the year, they are then to be fixed into a proper book and indexed.

Burials are to be registered in the monthly meeting in which the burial ground is situated; and if the deceased were not a member of such monthly meeting, the burial note is to be afterwards forwarded to the monthly meeting to which such deceased person did belong, to be there also registered, and sent from that meeting only to the quarterly meeting. But seeing that the burial grounds in the six monthly meetings of London are the joint property of those meetings, it shall suffice that burials in those grounds of members of any of the said meetings, be registered in the monthly meeting to which the deceased did belong, and the burial notes taken thence to the quarterly meeting.

Children who have not a birthright in our religious society, may be

G G

7

8

General regulations.

9

10

11

Examination

of registers.

registered upon application made for that

purpose.

Burials of persons,

not members of our religious society, may also take place in our burial grounds, provided they be, in all respects, conducted as the burials of friends are conducted; but no meeting for worship is to be appointed on any such occasion. In both instances it is to be stated on the notes and in the register, that the individuals are not in membership with us. Friends are to exercise discretion in complying with any application that may be made in the before-mentioned cases.

Monthly meetings are in all cases to make a record on their minutes, of the names of those for whom birth and burial notes, or marriage registers have been produced; and when the record is of the birth or burial of any one who was not a member of our religious society, the same is to be briefly noticed in the minute. The friend who gives out the birth or burial note, is to notice such cases as are last described in the check which he keeps, and also to take care that the monthly meeting is informed of the circumstance when the note is produced.

In the case of any witness not being able to write, the affixing of his or her mark is to be attested by the signature of another person.

Monthly meetings are, previously to the Spring quarterly meeting in every year, to appoint a committee to examine the registers of marriages, births, and burials: which committee is to ascertain by examination of the monthly meeting minutes, and of the check margins of the notes, that all birth and burial notes given out by the friends appointed to that service have been delivered in to the monthly meeting; and also by a comparison of the marriage registers, and of the birth and burial notes, as recorded on the minutes of the monthly meeting, with the register books, to ascertain that all marriages, births, and burials, have been duly and correctly registered; and also that the indexes at the ends of the respective register books are regularly kept up. The committee is also to make out a list of the said notes and registers, which list is to be signed on their behalf, and to be transmitted, together with the

birth and burial notes and marriage registers enumerated in it, to the Spring quarterly meeting.

The quarterly meeting is to deliver the said notes and marriage registers, to its registrar for preservation; and it is annually to appoint a committee to ascertain by an examination of its registers, that all marriage registers and birth and burial notes, enumerated in the lists sent in from the respective monthly meetings, are duly entered in the said registers, and that the indexes at the ends of the respective register books are kept up.

Quarterly and monthly meetings are also to exercise a proper care that the indexes of all register books of former times are so complete that there may be a ready reference to them in case of need.

1774.-1794.-1801.-1832.-1833.

1767.

12

13

1

Caution with regard to a change of re

sidence.

REMOVALS AND SETTLEMENTS.

WE feel it our concern to caution friends to be very circumspect, how they remove themselves and their families, from the places of their residence; it having been observed that the dissolving of old, and the forming of new connexions, have in many instances been attended with effects prejudicial to a growth in the truth, and the service thereof, both in the heads and younger branches of families; especially where the inclination to such removals hath originated in worldly motives. And as the growth and establishment of children in a religious life and conversation, being the most interesting, ought to be the principal engagement of the minds of parents, we desire that in putting them forward in a way of life, the probable effect it may have on their minds be the chief object in view. We recommend friends, both young and old, in these cases to give close attention to the pointings of divine wisdom, and also timely to consult experienced friends, previously to their fixing a resolution of changing their situation. 1784. P. E.-1833.

With respect to the commencement of the following rules, it was agreed that they should take place immediately after the end of the 8th month, 1820; but with this provision, that under any certificate issued before that time, (although such certificate might have a subsequent indorsement,) the gaining of settlement should be governed by the old rules; except in cases to which the eleventh of the present rules might be applicable; which eleventh rule, it was added, should be considered as wholly superseding from the above-mentioned period, the eleventh of the old rules.