Lancaster St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

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

Here is a Comprehensive List of Chapelries for Lancaster.

Parish History
LANCASTER (St. Mary), a parish, comprising the borough, port, and market town of Lancaster, having separate jurisdiction, partly in the hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, and partly in that of Amounderness, N. division of the county of Lancaster. Other places in the parish include: Hays Haw Fell, Hawthornthwaite Vaschery, Heaton with Oxcliffe, Lee Fell, Lentworth Vaschery, Marshaw Fell, Myerscough, Ortner Vaschery, Oxcliffe, Pilling Lane, Scotforth, Stodday, Thurnham, Torrisholme, Abbeystead, Aldcliffe, Ashton, Ashton with Stodday, Bare, Bulk, Catshaw Vaschery, Dunkenshaw Fell, Emmetts Vaschery, Fulwood, Green Vaschery, Hackensall, and Heaton.

To read an excellent 19th Century historical perspective on the City of Lancaster and its many churches and chapels, see the Topographical Dictionary of England by the famous topographer, Samuel A. Lewis.

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

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
Online Records
 * 1538 - 1910 at FamilySearch — index
 * 1603 - 1910 at FamilySearch — index and images

Some online transcriptions exist for Lancaster St Mary's Parish (Cathedral), as well as for its several chapelries and ecclesiastical parishes--over which it held jurisdiction. Links to online baptisms, marriages and burials registers are displayed below and located at the web sites indicated; note the ranges of years:

Original Records

Original copies of the parish registers for Lancaster St Mary and its numerous attached smaller chapelries' registers are held at the Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, PR2 1RE.

In addition, the Family History Library, at FamilySearch in Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A. also has microfilm copies of these originals and these may be circulated to any one of its 4,600 satellite FamilySearch Centres worldwide.

Non Conformist Records

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images
 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions
Lancaster Poor Law Union,Lancashire

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.

Taxation

 * 1665-1667 - Lancashire Hearth Tax: Lonsdale Hundred, Lancaster Borough. E 179/132/352, The National Archives. Microfilm: . Includes Aldcliffe, Ashton, Bare, Bulk, Carnforth, Poulton le Sands, Scotforth, Stodday, Thurnham, and Torrisholme.

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