How Did The Baptists Churches Get Started?

The Baptist church movement in Britain started in about 1600, and is strongly linked to the Puritan and Anabaptist Protestant movements.  

Baptists believe in total immersion in water for baptism.  Infants are not baptised because they aren't old enough to make a full profession in the belief of Jesus Christ as Savior.  For this reason it is often hard to trace one's family tree if you have Baptist relatives before 1837 (when deaths, marriages and births started to be registered for all); the baptism of their babies won't be in the Parish registrars.

Baptists believe that the Bible is the main if not sole source of Christian doctrine (versus creed or traditions).  Some Baptists are fundamentalists and believe in the absolute truth of the Bibles, others are willing to take a more metaphorical perspective on the contents of the Old and New Testaments.  

Baptists worldwide are broken into various sects.  A leading precept of the movement is that each congregation is independent of others, which leaves scope for different interpretations of holy texts from one church to the next.