Over Darwen St James, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire   Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Over Darwen St James, Lancashire family history and genealogy. Parish registers (baptism, christening, marriage, and burial records), civil registration (birth, marriage, and death records), census records, history, wills, cemetery, online transcriptions and indexes, an interactive map and websites.

Chapelry History
St James Over Darwen was a chapel of ease created prior to the year 1687 and lay within the ancient parish boundary of Blackburn. Here is Samuel Lewis' historical 1848 perspective on this township:

DARWEN, OVER, a chapelry,in the parish and union of Blackburn, Lower division of the hundred of Blackburn, N. division of Lancashire, 4¼ miles south by east of Blackburn. The chapel, dedicated to St. James, and now a district church, was erected prior to 1687. A second church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, was erected in 1827-8.

There are places of worship for Wesleyans and others.

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 Records
 Church of England 

Over Darwen St James chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Blackburn to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Over Darwen St James and comprising the whole ancient parish of Blackburn to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the BLACKBURN ST MARY PARISH page.

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.

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