Edingthorpe, Norfolk Genealogy

Guide to Edingthorpe, Norfolk ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
EDINGTHORPE (All Saints), a parish, in the Tunstead and Happing incorporation, hundred of Tunstead, E. division of Norfolk, 3 miles (N. E. by E.) from North Walsham.

Edingthorpe All Saints is an Ancient parish in the Diocese of Norwich.

A Round tower church which is Saxon in origin with later medieval top to the tower and thatched roof.

The war poet Siegfried Sassoon visited the church when he was child on holiday in Norfolk. The location obviously made an impression on him for, later in life, when he came to write his autobiography The Old Century and Seven More Years (1938), he remembers the timelessness of the place: 'It had a very special dignity and simplicity, standing there on its low hill above the harvest fields, as though it were the faithful servant of the life around it.

All churches are alike in the eyes of our Maker, it now seemed to be saying; it evokes in me a sense of local England and the centuries behind it, - the harvests it has seen and the pathos of those humble folk who had toiled and died and had been "of this parish".

Sassoon used to stay at the Old Rectory each summer with his parents and his two bothers Michael and Hamo. On his return to Edingthorpe in 1937 he also remarked upon the village pond, but in less picturesque terms: 'There was the black stagnant pond with a few ducks on it - longer and narrower than it had been in my rememberings... It had always been an unprepossessing, unfishable pond.'

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.


 * Tunstead 1837-1869
 * Smallburgh 1870-1935
 * Bacton 1936-1938
 * North Walsham 1939-1974

Church records
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Norfolk Record Office reference PD 63/ 1-5, 25-27

This parish does not appear on FamilySearch as no microfilm for the parish is held at the Family History Library. A search of the FamilySearch Catalogue identifies the following Archdeacon's transcripts:

Non-Conformist Church Records

 * 1613-1901 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions
Tunstead and Happing Union became part of Smallburgh Union

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Smallburgh/

Norfolk Poor Law Unions

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

 * Edingthorpe on GenUKI
 * History and tour of Edingthorpe church.
 * Pictures of village and church of Edingthorpe
 * Edingthorpe Parish Info
 * Church photos Norfolk Churches site