Bow, Middlesex Genealogy

Guide to Bow, Middlesex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
BOW, or Stratford-le-Bow was created a parish  by 1538. It lies on the River Lea, within the borough Tower Hamlets, just 4 miles east by northeast of St. Paul's Cathedral. See also the Village of Stratford, Victoria Park, and the Hamlet of Old Ford. The parish was formerly a chapel of ease to St Dunstan Stepney Parish, but became a parish by act of Parliament in 1717.

A chapel of ease  was also built in Old Ford. In 1867 the Baptists built a chapel in this parish, as well, and other dissenting chapels existed.

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
Bow 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 London Metropolitan Archives.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Manorial Records

 * Records survive for Stratford-at-Bow Manor (1300-1541) in Bow Parish. The Manorial Documents Register will help you locate these records.

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
Bow on GENUKI