The existing church of St Michael in Farnley is comparatively new, though built on the site of older chapels. Baptisms and burials were carried out here from an early period; some memorial stones in the church yard date back to the 17th century. Known records date back to 1572. These are the Farnley Chapel Registers which were sent to the parish church at Leeds until Farnley started keeping their own records from 1790
These earliest independent Farnley Baptisms appear to be loose pages at the back of the register that started in 1794. The loose pages cover 1790-1793 and are so faded that the dates are invisible, though the names have been re-inked. The entries with missing dates can be found on the IGI, which are taken from the Bishop's Transcripts.

The earlier baptisms from 1572 are taken from Leeds Parish registers. Farnley chapel was obliged to send their records to Leeds St Peters, so some events may have occured at St Peters or in Farnley, but the entries are clearly marked that the paricipants were from Farnley, so they are included here. For the sake of ease we have included all records listed as concerning Farnley residents from other neighbouring chapels.

Important note: There are also gaps in the registers and Farnley registers, like so many others, were neglected during the interregnum, so there are no baptism entries for the years 1645 to 1660. Another gap is between 1685 to 1724, there are only 10 entries found for this 40 year period. It may be because the Leeds parish reisters didn't note from which chapel the entries were from making it extremely diificult to identify Farnley entries.