Blakedown, Worcestershire Genealogy

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

Parish History
Blakedown is a village in the Wyre Forest District in the north of the county of Worcestershire, England. Due to its road and rail links it serves mainly as a dormitory village for Kidderminster, and the cities of Birmingham and Worcester. Originally part of Hagley Parish, it was transferred in 1888 to the small adjacent parish of Churchill, which became Churchill and Blakedown.

Additional information:

Much of Blakedown was originally an area of common land, enclosed in the 19th century. However Harborough Hall, which once belonged to the family of William Shenstone the poet, is probably the successor of a house that goes back to Medieval times.

The main road that runs through the village was part of the turnpike road from Birmingham to Kidderminster. The turnpike trust was established in 1753.

Blakedown railway station was opened in 1852 and originally called Churchill station). Later it was called Churchill and Blakedown before adopting its current name.

The village has a small church, St. James the Great, and a Church of England primary school.

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
Blakedown 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 The Hive (where the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is located).

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