Atherton, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Atherton, 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
ATHERTON, a chapelry, in the parish and union of Leigh, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 12 miles (W. by N.) from Manchester, and on the road from Leigh to Bolton; containing, with the village of Chowbent,The present chapel is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and is a plain structure, built in 1810: There are places of worship for Unitarians and Baptists; and infants' and day schools, in connexion with the chapel, built in 1840.

Atherton St John the Baptist is a chapelry created in 1722 from, and lying within the boundaries of the ancient parish of Leigh, Lancashire. For an excellent 19th Century historical perspective, see Samuel A. Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of England about this chapelry.

There were places of worship for Unitarians and Baptists.

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 index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Online Records
Atherton chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Leigh 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 Atherton and comprising the whole ancient parish of Leigh to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the LEIGH PARISH page.

Parish registers for St. John the Baptist's Church, Atherton, 1778-1959 Microfilm of original records at the Wigan Record Office, Leigh, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, England; and formerly heldat the Manchester Archives Central Library in Manchester, England. Atherton was once a chapelry in the parish of Leigh. In 1859 it became a parish in its own right. The name of the church is St. John the Baptist. Manchester Central Library call nos.: L 177/1/2/5-6; L 177/1/3/3-9, L 177/1/4/2-3.

Bishop's transcripts for Leigh, 1602-1853 Microreproduction of original manuscripts housed at the Lancashire Record Office, Preston. Contains baptisms, marriages and burials of Leigh parish including the following chapelries: Astley, Atherton, Ellenbrook (in Eccles parish), Peel or Little Hulton (in Deane parish), Tyldesley and Bedford. Lancashire Record Office: DRM/2/111-119

Poor Law Unions
Leigh, Lancashire Poor Law Union

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