Woodlands, Kent Genealogy

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

Parish History
WOODLANDS, a chapelry in Wrotham and Shoreham parishes, Kent; 4 miles SW of Meopham railway station.

Originally a chapelry within Wrotham, Kent Ancient Parish Woodlands St Mary became an Ecclesiastical Parish in 1850, later linked to Kingsdown and Kemsing, Kent St Mary.

For further history Kent Archaeological Society

The parish is to the north of Kemsing and neighbours Kingsdown with Mappiscombe, Kent to the north.

This parish should not be confused with Woodlands, Dorset or Woodlands, Hampshire or the church of the same name in Berkshire.

See Church website

Civil Registration
This parish was from 1837 in the Malling registration district

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
Woodlands 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.

Kent Online Parish Clerks has indexes available for select parishes. Records are also available at the Kent Archives.

Family History Library film numbers

Census records
FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.


 * Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK.
 * Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK.
 * Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats, merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved.

Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.

Poor Law Unions

 * Malling 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

 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain