Benwell St James, Northumberland Genealogy

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

Parish History
BENWELL, a district chapelry comprising the township of Benwell and part of that of Elswick, in the parish of St. John, Newcastle, union of Newcastle, W. division of Castle ward, S. division of Northumberland 2½ miles (W.) from Newcastle. The chapel, dedicated to St. James, stands conspicuously on an eminence near the centre of the district, and was erected in 1832. There are places of worship for Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists.

Benwell St James Northumberland, created in 1843 from chapelry in Newcastle upon Tyne St Nicolas, Northumberland Ancient Parish.

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
Benwell 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 Northumberland Archives.

Poor Law Unions
Newcastle Upon Tyne Poor Law Union, Northumberland

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