A project to conserve the first Great Yarmouth parish register is continuing.

Norfolk Archives and Heritage Development Foundation, together with the Towne Family Association, has raised £2,800 to repair the register which records approximately 138,000 names, with details of baptisms, marriages and burials in the town between 1558 and 1653.

Three of the women included in the register were victims of the withcraft hysteria of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, hence the Towne connection.

The association is dedicated to the descendants of William Towne and Joanna Blessing, who were married at St Nicholas Church in 1620. Six of their children, Rebecca, John, Susan, Edmund, Jacob, and Mary were baptised there. After emigrating to Salem MA, in the USA, two more children, Joseph and Sarah were born.

A plaque commemorating the family hangs in the Minster.

There is a small pop-up exhibition about the conservation work in the Minster until March 23, 10am to 3pm.