Canterbury St Mary Magdalen, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Canterbury St Mary Magdalen, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Canterbury - St. Mary Magdalen is, ecclesiastically, in the diocese of Canterbury, in the archdeaconry of Canterbury and in the deanery of Canterbury. The church is named for St. Mary Magdalene with original parish registers commencing 1559. With the exception of the church tower, the 12th century church of St Mary Magdalene was demolished in 1871. The Roman Catholic church of St Thomas, Burgate was built in 1874 on part of the site of the demolished St Mary Magdalene.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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.
 * 1837-1897 Canterbury Registration district

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Kent ($)
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Kent ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census Records
Family Search microfilm for Census Returns for the city are at Census returns for Canterbury, 1841-1891

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
 * Findmypast Census

Poor Law Unions

 * Canterbury 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.

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

 * Canterbury - St. Mary Magdalen Parish Kent Online Parish Clerks
 * St Mary Magdalen Kent Archeological Society
 * The churches within the city and suburbs British History Online