Wateringbury, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Wateringbury, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Wateringbury is a village and civil parish near Maidstone in the Tonbridge and Malling district of Kent, see Wateringbury Wikipedia.

Wateringbury St John the Baptist is an Ancient Parish which included Lilyhoo within the parish boundary and is in the Diocese of Rochester; a map of the parish boundary is available at A church near you.

The church of St John the Baptist has been designated as a grade II* listed building British listed building.

See Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (1798), pp. 106-118. Date accessed: 2 December 2013. at British History Online and Kent Churches website

See Wateringbury North West Kent Family History Society and Wateringbury St John the Evangelist.

Civil Registration
This parish was from 1837 in the Malling registration district See Maidstone Registration District

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church Records
Wateringbury parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Kent Online Parish Clerks has indexes available for select parishes. Records are also available at the Kent Archives.

Land Tax
Images for Wateringbury are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1831

Census records
Census returns for Wateringbury 1841-1891

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Poor Law Unions
Malling Poor Law Union, Kent

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

See England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records

Local Family History Centre
Maidstone Family History Centre, Kent


 * FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.
 * Publication of the restricted access images England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records and England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records means that it is advisable to telephone the centre to reserve a computer if you wish to view these collections using the portal.

Maps and Gazetteers
WATERINGBURY (St. John the Baptist), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of West Malling, hundred of Twyford, lathe of Aylesford, W. division of Kent, 5 miles (W. by S.) from Maidstone.