Kirkdale St Mary, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Kirkdale St Mary, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapelry History
KIRKDALE (St Mary), a township with a district chapel, in the parish of Walton on the Hill, union and hundred of West Derby, S. division of Lancashire, 2 miles north by east of the Exchange of Liverpool. St. Mary's Church, was opened for divine service in August, 1836. This district has St Mary's Cemetery, one of the public cemeteries of Liverpool. The church closed in 1973 and was demolished in 1979. Although it had a graveyard this should not be confused with the St Mary cemetery Kirkdale with which it had no connection. (see Church Records section)

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

 * 1538 - 1910 at FamilySearch — index

 Church of England 

Kirkdale chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Walton on the Hill 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 Kirkdale and comprising the whole ancient parish of Walton on the Hill to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the WALTON ON THE HILL ST MARY PARISH page.

St Mary's churchyard can be confused with nearby and unconnected St Mary's Cemetery Kirkdale.

St. Mary's Cemetery, Walton Road, Kirkdale, was a proprietary cemetery, opened in 1837. It was vested in a body of Trustees, pursuant to a deed of settlement dated 11 February, 1837 and was named after the nearby church of St. Mary's, Walton Road, Kirkdale (consecrated 1836) with which it had no connection whatever.

J A Picton in Memorials of Liverpool, 1875, vol. 2, p.408 (ref. H942.721PIC) describes the cemetery and states that "? though small (it) is rather prettily laid out". A description of the Cemetery in 1896 is given in a report of the Medical Officer of Health On Intramural Interments, 30 Jan 1896, available in the Health Committee's Burial Grounds (Special) Sub-Committee Minutes Book, 1896-1902, (see 352MIN/HEA II 5/1, pp.8, 16 and minutes relating to its proposed closure are given in the same volume, pp. 21-77.

Under the terms of the Liverpool Corporation Act, 1898 (see An Act for authorising the Corporation of the City of Liverpool ? to acquire ? as open spaces certain burial grounds within the city ? 12 Aug. 1898, 61 and 62 Vic.) St. Mary's Cemetery was closed and acquired by Liverpool Corporation in November 1898, the Cemetery having been for some time "? overcrowded, neglected and an eyesore ? (see Town Clerk's Newscutting, 1904-1906, 352CLE/CUT 1/28, p. 207). The site was taken over by the Corporation's Parks and Gardens Department and on 10 Jul. 1905 was opened as an ornamental garden known as Lester Gardens, in memory of Canon Major Lester (1829-1903) for over 50 years vicar of St. Mary's Church, Kirkdale.

The records of the Cemetery appear to have been indifferently kept and according to the Burial Grounds (Special) Sub-Committee Minute Book op. cit., p.8 "...the records have been lost". None of the Burial Registers is indexed, but gravestone inscriptions, with an index of names, are given in the St Mary's Cemetery, Kirkdale, Inscription Books (see 352CEM 1/12/1-1/12/3 above) and also in James Gibson Epitaphs and inscriptions on tombstones and monuments in Liverpool Churches ? cemeteries, vols. 9 and 10 (RO microfilm 7/27, 3 reels). Source : Liverpool Record office RefNo 352 CEM/4

Parish registers for St. Mary's Church, Kirkdale Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1948 Microfilm of original records at the Kirkdale Record Office.

Burial registers, 1837-1863. FHL BRITISH Film 93752 Burial registers, 1863-1898. FHL BRITISH Film 93753 Day book of burials accounts, 1837-1860. FHL BRITISH Film 93754 Monumental inscriptions, 1837-1898. FHL BRITISH Film 93755 Monumental inscriptions, 1837-1898; Index to monumental inscriptions, 1837-1898. FHL BRITISH Film 93756 Bishop's transcripts for St. Aidan's Church, St. Mary's Church, Kirkdale; St. Barnabas' Church, St. Paul's Church, Liverpool; and St. Clement's Church, Toxteth Park Microfilm of original records at the Lancashire Record Office, Preston. North Shore's Church later called St. Paul. Kirkdale is a parochial-chapelry in the parish of Walton-on-the-Hill.

Baptisms 1869-1876 (St. Aidan, Kirkdale); baptisms 1836-1843, 1855-1859 (St. Mary, Kirkdale); baptisms 1856-1858 (North Shore, Liverpool); baptisms 1855-1856 (St. Barnabas, Liverpool); baptisms 1841-1856 (St. Clement, Toxteth Park, Liverpool). FHL BRITISH Film 1468979 Item 3

Non Conformist Records

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

Poor Law Unions
West Derby, 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