Leigh, Lancashire Genealogy

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

Parish History
LEIGH (St Mary), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of West Derby, S. division of Lancashire, 46 miles south by southeast of Lancaster, comprising the separate parochial district chapel of Tyldesley cum Shakerley, as well the chapelries of Astley, Atherton, and Bedford, and the townships of Pennington and Westleigh. There are places of worship for Independents, Wesleyan Methodists, Roman Catholics, and others.

For a list of all chapels standing within this parish, see A Comprehensive List of Chapelries in Leigh Parish.

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Civil Registration
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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Chapelry is a church or churches built in a large ecclesiastical parish to help the members attend worship services closer to their homes.

Poor Law Unions
Leigh, Lancashire Poor Law Union

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

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain