Chester St John the Baptist, Cheshire Genealogy

Parish History
St John the Baptist is a parish in the city of Chester. For more information on the city, see Chester.

Chester, St. John the Baptist, Vicars Lane. An ancient parish church, originally serving part of the city centre and a small part of Hoole.

St John the Baptist's Church, Chester is in the city of Chester, although it lies outside the city walls on a cliff above the north bank of the River Dee.

The church was reputedly founded by King Aethelred in 689. During the 11th century, Earl Leofric was a "great benefactor" of the church. In 1075 Peter, Bishop of Lichfield moved the seat of his see to Chester, making St John's his cathedral until he died in 1085. Peter's successor moved his seat to Coventry and St John's became a co-cathedral.

The exterior of the church contains a few tombstones that remain in their original positions. The vast majority of the gravestones have now been repositioned and laid to the ground forming the footpaths immediately in front of the church. In 2009 a research project recorded the inscriptions on the remaining tombs and gravestones.

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

To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes. Here is a list of parish registers on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Parish registers for St. John's Church, Chester 1559-1956 Cheshire Record Office call no.: P 51/1/1-4, P 51/2/1, 7-10, P 51/24/1-4, P 51/3/1-21, P 51/4/1-5, P 51/5/5, P 51/6.

Registers of Baptisms 1559–1940, Marriages 1559–1956 and Burials 1559–1915 have been deposited at the Cheshire Record Office.

Bishop's Transcripts Microfilm of originals in the Cheshire Record Office, Chester reference: EDB 54

Non-Conformist Churches

 * 1671-1900 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from 1 July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. Here are two excellent Internet sites with birth, marriage and death indexes available:


 * FreeBMD
 * Cheshire BMD

Civil Registration Districts

 * Great Boughton

Poor Law Unions
Chester Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Cheshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

See also England Cheshire Probate Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

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
Chester St John the Baptist on GENUKI