BURIAL records for the youngest of Haworth's famous Bronte sisters are included in a new online archive.

Family history website findmypast.co.uk has published for the first time more than 5.4 million Yorkshire registers, including births, deaths and marriages.

The Yorkshire Digitisation project, launched two years ago, comprises scanned images of original handwritten registers and marks the final phase of a collection spanning the years 1538 to 1990.

Anne Bronte can be found in the burial records for St Mary's Parish Church, in Scarborough.

While the rest of her siblings were buried in the family vault at Haworth, Anne was laid to rest at St Mary's churchyard, beneath the castle walls overlooking the bay.

Her health had begun to deteriorate after the death of her sister Emily in December, 1848.

She was taken to Scarborough in the belief the sea air would help her.

Accompanying her were sister Charlotte and Charlotte’s friend, Ellen Nussey.

En route to the coast, they spent a day and a night in York, where – escorting Anne around in a wheelchair – they did some shopping and at Anne's request, visited the minster.

In Scarborough, Anne's condition worsened and she died on May 28, 1849.

At that time St Mary's Church was being rebuilt, so the funeral service was held at Christ Church in the town.

The service took place within two days of her death, which unfortunately didn't allow her father Patrick time to make the 70-mile journey to attend.

In 2011, the Bronte Society installed a new plaque at Anne's grave as the original stone was badly eroded and no longer legible.

The online archive also includes many other famous 'sons and daughters' from the county.

It features the marriage register for poet William Wordsworth and his childhood friend Mary Hutchinson, who wed in the parish of Brompton on October 4, 1802.

And the baptism of anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce appears in the register for Holy Trinity Church, Hull, on September 21, 1759.

Chris Webb, of the Yorkshire Digitisation consortium, said: "Yorkshire historically has about ten per cent of the people of England and Wales, so this latest launch of family data is a big step forward for many people.

"It's really important to make access to archives as easy as possible and this collaboration with Findmypast is a major contribution to that important goal."

Debra Chatfield, a family historian at Findmypast, said the Yorkshire collection was one of the largest regional parish record archives available anywhere online.

"It contains some truly wonderful gems," she added.

"Now that this landmark collection is complete, records for the whole county are available to search in one place, enabling people all around the world to discover fascinating details of Yorkshire ancestors they didn’t know they had.

"Every release of digital records is an event, but this one really is important.

"They are full of fascinating details of Yorkshire life through the ages.

"As the provenances of the records are defined by historical – rather than modern – boundaries, areas now outside of today's Yorkshire such as County Durham are also covered."

Burial registers from parish churches across Yorkshire give evidence of the scale of the 1832 cholera epidemic and reveal details of the deaths of soldiers in the 1645 civil war.

Everyday tragedies are also captured.

Over centuries when childbirth was still highly dangerous, it was not uncommon to find instances of children's first names being recorded as 'Stillborn'

More bizarre deaths recorded include an entry in the parish burial register for Kirby Wiske, which says that on July 7, 1791, Richard Sturdy, John Cartman and Rich'd Sturdy were "poisoned by neglect of a servant girl in making a pudding".

Visit findmypast.co.uk to explore the records.