Dudley St James, Worcestershire Genealogy

Guide to Dudley St James, Worcestershire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Dudley Priory, a small priory for monks, was dedicated to St. James, and was affiliated with the Cluniac community of Much Wenlock. After the dissolution (of monasteries), the priory was granted to Sir John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in 1540. This priory went into disuse and became ruinous after his death in 1553.

In 1840, Church of England commissioners and with the assistance of local subscriptions built a district church at Eve Hill (also within Dudley's parish boundary). The church registers are held at the Dudley Archives Library, in Dudley and commence from 1844.

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
Dudley St James 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 The Hive (where the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is located).

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

Websites
Worcester Branch of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.