Sextons' day books for 1685-1687 and 1694-1703 from the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London.

British burial records of past centuries were kept by parish ministers, clerks, and sextons and conventionally included only names and dates. However, the ages of the deceased and the supposed causes of their deaths sometimes were also noted. When this was done regularly for periods of a year or more, the parish officer obligingly if unknowingly provided grist for the mills of medical and social historians. The sextons' day books for the Parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, kept at least partly as ledgers of the burial fees that were collected, also list dates, full names, identification of the deceased as "C" (child), "M" (man), or"W" (woman), place of habitation, and the supposed cause of death.2 Irregularly, the occupation or title of the deceased, the actual ages of children, and such incidental designations as "Infant" or "Chrisom" (a baby less than a month old) were also included, but such information was too intermittent to be of much assistance. The four volumes whose contents are analyzed in this paper are identified in the Archives Department of the Westminster District Library as 419/229 (June 1685 through July 1687), 419/230 (June 1694 through 18 November 1697), 419/231 (19 November 1697 through July 1699), and 419/232 (August 1699 through March 1703). Thus, the record is missing for the period August 1687 through May 1694.3 The books are bound in vellum, contain approximately 125-200 paper folios each, and measure 9 X 15, 7 X 12, 61/2 X 8, and 7% X 10 in., respectively. Judging from the handwriting, various individuals took turns, each usually keeping the record for a month. The spelling is casual but phonetic, e.g., coft (coughed), risinlits (rising lights), measill, stoppidg, Ann a bortiv (an abortive), cansur, feaver, and tenpenny (tympany). Probably because the record