Felkirk, Yorkshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
FELKIRK (St. Peter), a parish, in the wapentake of Staincross, W. riding of York, 6¼ miles (N. E. by E.) from Barnsley; containing with the townships of Brierley, Havercroft with Cold Hiendley, South Hiendley, and Shafton, 1186 inhabitants.

The parish includes the townships of Brierly, Hiendley, Havercroft, Shafton, Cold Hiendley and Grimethorpe and the church is dedicated to St Peters. GENUKI

The word Felkirk is believed to derive from the original wooden church built by Danish Saxons in the 9th Century from the work Fjol Kirche, Fjol meaning a plank or a board or split logs of wood which over many centuries became corrupted into fel, with Kirche meaning church. An alternative explanation would be Field Church based on the fact its in the middle of nowhere but the former is generally believed to be most likely due to the use of the 3 field system. There is no actual town or village by the name of Felkirk.

The current stone church at Felkirk is believed to be the first church built in the north after the Harrying of the North by the William the Conqueror (1069/70). An exact date is not given but is believed to be towards the end of the 11th century by the Norman Lord Ilbert de laci. Various extensions have been built over the centuries and the church still serves the surrounding community despite the surrounding villages now having their own churches.

The school room also built on the same site was built in 1580 and has recently been refurbished to a high quality.

Much more detail can be found on the Brierly Village website.

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.

Church records
Felkirk 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.

Records are also available at the West Yorkshire Archive Service.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Yorkshire 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