Loose, Kent Genealogy

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

Parish History
LOOSE (All Saints), a parish, in the union and hundred of Maidstone, lathe of Aylesford, W division of the county of Kent, 2½ miles S from Maidstone.

Loose (pronounced looze) is a village and civil parish 2 miles south of the county town of Maidstone and the church of All Saints lies close to the river Loose. See Loose Kent Wikipedia

All Saints was originally a chapelry of Maidstone All Saints, Kent which was later enlarged to form an Ecclesiastical parish in the Diocese of Canterbury. The church is on the site of a former Saxon church and the oldest part of the building dates from the 14th century and church warden's accounts from 1364.

The church was restored and additions made in subsequent centuries; in 1819 and 1860 North and South Aisles were added. In 1878 serious fire damage lead to major restoration.

The Parish church of All Saints, Church Street, Loose 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 4 (1798), pp. 359-365 at British History Online and Kent Churches website

The Reverend Richard Boys was vicar here and is buried in the churchyard. He was chaplain to St Helena during the exile of Napoleon Bonaparte. The church also has memorials to the Fairfax family who held the Leeds Castle estates. One former vicar of the parish assumed the arms and name of Fairfax and the estates.

Civil Registration
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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Original deposited registers are held at:

Centre for Kentish Studies,County Hall,Maidstone,Kent ME14 1XX

From Spring 2012 material formerly held at Centre for Kentish Studies,County Hall,Maidstone,Kent ME14 1XX is available at Kent History and Library Centre see Kent Archives which also enables a search of the catalogue for Kent Archives material deposited at Canterbury Cathedral Archives

Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Family History Library film numbers

Census records
Census returns for Loose 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
Maidstone 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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain