He was the grandfather of John Burn Olympic rower, and cousin of Edmund Blacket Australian architect. He was also uncle by marriage of Christiana Edmunds. Professionally concerned with parish registers, he studied them. Finding that no specialist work on the area had appeared since "Observations on Parochial Registers" (1764) by Ralph Bigland in 1764, he published in 1829 his "Registrum Ecclesiæ Parochialis", a history of parish registers in England, with observations on those in other countries. A second edition appeared in 1862. In 1831 he published, with biographical notes, the "Livre des Anglois à Genève", the register of the English church in Geneva from 1554 to 1558, which had been communicated to him by Samuel Egerton Brydges. In 1833 he published "The Fleet Registers", containing a history of Fleet marriages, which reached a third edition in 1836. In 1846 he issued his major work, "The History of the French, Walloon, Dutch, and other Foreign Protestant Refugees settled in England", which he compiled mainly from registers of places of worship. In 1861 he published "A History of Henley on Thames". In 1865 he produced "The High Commission", dedicated to Charles George Young, which consisted of a collection of notices of the court and its procedure drawn from various sources. Early in 1870 he issued a similar but more elaborate work on "The Star Chamber", which also contained some additional notes on the court of high commission. He also edited "The Marriage and Registrations Acts (6 and 7 William IV)", London, 1836.