Oxfordshire, England Genealogy

England Oxfordshire

Guide to Oxfordshire ancestry, family history and genealogy parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Oxfordshire, or Oxon, is an inland county located roughly in the lower mid-section of England.

County Information
In 1887, John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles described Oxfordshire like this:

"Oxfordshire, south-midland co. of England, bounded N. by Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, E. by Bucks, S. by Berks, from which it is separated by the Thames, and W. by Gloucestershire; greatest length, 60 miles; greatest breadth, 30 miles; area, 483,621 ac., pop. 179,559. Most of the co. is level, but there are gentle undulations of surface, rising to 836 ft. at Broom Hill in the NW., which is the highest point of land. . . ."

Parishes
Use an interactive mapto find jurisdictions for each parish in Oxfordshire.

Civil Registration Districts
When civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in 1837, Oxfordshire was divided into a number of registration districts, each containing several parishes. The index to the civil records gives the name of the district where an event took place. Click here to see a list of the civil districts in Oxfordshire and the parishes covered by each. Read more about England Civil Registration.

Probate Jurisdictions
Before 1858, every town and parish in Oxfordshire was under the probate jurisdiction of several ecclesiastical courts. Beginning in 1858, a civil system was established to probate the estates of deceased persons.

To read more about probate records and see a list of Oxfordshire towns and parishes and the probate courts that had jurisdiction over them, go to Oxfordshire Probate Records.

Taxes
1873 Return of Land Owners

Websites

 * Oxfordshire Resources and help pages on RootsChat Oxfordshire Resources and help pages. (Free).
 * Oxfordshire Surnames Listings
 * Kingston Bagpuize with Southmoor
 * Heritage Search: Provided courtesy of the Oxfordshire County Council
 * Oxfordshire History Centre

To view a further list of web sites and/or web pages for Oxfordshire and many of its parishes, visit FHLFavorites.info.

Research Tools
The Oxfordshire Family History Society contains many valuable resources for researching in the parish of Oxfordshire. Free online information includes detailed parish maps, a surname interest list, some memorial transcriptions, and hundreds of will transcriptions, including original text, simplified modern day translations, and concise lists of the relationships detailed in the will. In addition, an extensive collection of Oxfordshire records has been transcribed by members and can be purchased from the society on CD or microfiche. These records include Census Indexes, Marriage Indexes, Parish Registers, Monumental Inscriptions, and Oxford City Guardians of the Poor reports. The Salt Lake City Family History Library has copies of the Parish Registers, but these records are restricted and cannot be sent out to LDS Family History Libraries in other locations. In addition, as of April 2010 they are not available on genealogy sites such as findmypast.co.uk or ancestry.co.uk.

Did You Know?
Oxford History Centre is in a converted Church of England church on the outskirts of Oxford.

St Luke's Church, Temple Road, Cowley, Oxford OX4 2HT

It is home to Oxfordshire County's archives and local studies collections. Oxfordshire Health Archives is also based there.

As well as original records, maps, newspapers, and books on the history of Oxfordshire, the Images and Voices collection Pictureoxon includes illustrations, photographs and oral history recordings.The centre has some excellent indexes and transcripts of most parish registers throughout the county.

You can find out more on their website: Oxfordshire History Centre