Marriages, 420, each twice 840
Burials 1244
____
Total 4088 ... 551/2 hours.
2. Collecting and filing alphabetically 23 ----
3. Sorting in strict alphabetical order 131/4 ----
4. Transcribing into book 911/2 ----
5. Copying statistical tables into book 5 ----
Transcripts of miscellaneous entries,
lists of vicars, &c. &c. 7 ----
______
Total 1951/4 hours.

My registers begin in the year 1558, and the present population of the
parish is about 420, so that you have here an account of the labour
necessary to complete an alphabetical transcript of the register of a rural
parish of that extent in population.

I send you the result as a first step to a work of great national
importance, and of inestimable value with relation to family descent, title
to property long in abeyance, &c. &c. As to statistics, I doubt whether any
data worthy of consideration can be obtained from these sources, owing to
the constant irregularities which occur in keeping the registers.

No man, much less the minister of a parish, who has abundant calls upon his
time, can be expected to sit down to the task of transcribing his registers
through many _consecutive_ hours; but there are few who could not give
occasionally one or two hours to the work. In this way I effected my
transcripts; the work of 195 hours being distributed through nearly five
months--no great labour after all.