Parishes developed into civil parishes and church parishes - not necessarily holding the same boundaries. The civil parishes were sometimes described as Quoad Civilia and the church parishes as Quoad Sacra. The overall parish, if the same boundaries applied to civil and church was occasionally referred to as Quoad Omnia.Hugo wrote:What is a Quoad Sacra parish? I have never heard of this before.
As the populations grew in the urban areas it was quite common for another church to be built to accommodate the expanding population. These churches were granted a portion of the main parish as their parish, referred to as the Quoad Sacra parish. On looking through the censuses it is quite common to see the civil parish and the church parish both used in the definition of the area enumerated.
In the example above the group of streets in the census enumeration book would be defined as in the civil parish of South Leith, and the Quoad Sacra parish of St John.
In some large rural parishes Quoad Sacra parishes were raised so that people didn't have to travel so far to church. In a few of the largest parishes the church was more than 20 miles from the extremities of the parish. In these cases the QS church would be set up to serve the communities far from the main parish church.
The parochial registers (which later became the OPRs) were held by the main parish church. The baptisms and marriages held in the QS parish were (or at least should have been) recorded in the registers held in the main parish church.
See also viewtopic.php?t=4280 .
All the best,
AndrewP