to have been a superfluity of members of the family of Pottman in this
parish, and the clergyman appears to have been tired of recording
their names in his books, and thus resolves:--

"1557 Mary Pottman nat. & bapt. 15 Apr.
Mary Pottman n. & b. 29 Jan.
Mary Pottman sep. 22 Aug.
1567
From henceforw^{d} I omitt the Pottmans."

Fire has played havoc with parish registers. The old register of
Arborfield, Berkshire, was destroyed by a fire at the rectory. Those
at Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, were burnt in a fire which consumed
two-thirds of the town in 1676, and many others have shared the same
fate. The Spaniards raided the coast of Cornwall in 1595 and burnt the
church at Paul, when the registers perished in the conflagration.

Wanton destruction has caused the disappearance of many parish books.
There was a parish clerk at Plungar in Leicestershire who combined his
ecclesiastical duties with those of a grocer. He found the pages of
the parish register very useful for wrapping up his groceries. The
episcopal registry of Ely seems to have been plundered at some time of
its treasures, as some one purchased a book entitled _Registrum
causarum Consistorii Eliensis de Tempore Domini Thome de Arundele
Episcopi Eliensis_, a large quarto, written on vellum, containing 162
double pages, which was purchased as waste paper at a grocer's shop at
Cambridge together with forty or fifty old books belonging to the
registry of Ely. The early registers at Christ Church, Hampshire, were
destroyed by a curate's wife who had made kettle-holders of them, and
would perhaps have consumed the whole parish archives in this homely