Diss St Mary, Norfolk Genealogy

History
Diss St Mary is the earliest church for the town and subsequently with the expansion in the fifteenth century a chapel was built.

St Mary survived as the Ancient parish church; the chapel survived only until the Reformation.

The church was founded in 1290 and John Skelton one of the rectors was also the poet laureate.

The Manning family provided many rectors of Diss and the Mannings formed a continuous line of Rectors from 1778 to 1916.

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

Images of the parish register for this parish are available on Record Search, however the current arrangement of images need future engineering. The Norfolk Record Office reference is PD 100

The earliest registers from 1551 were bound in August 1816 by William Manning Rector and are marked No 1 and contain Baptisms and marriages 1551-1652 Burials 1555-1651 A second bound volume marked No 2 contains Baptisms and marriages 1551-1598 Burials 1555-1598.

There is a non functional Record Search way point suggesting records 1653-1667 which should display Baptisms, marriages, burials 1653-1667

The 1667-1691 images are for Baptisms, marriages, burials 1667-1691

The 1691-1729 images are for Baptisms, marriages, burials 1691-1729

The 1694-1696 images are fo a draft register for 1694-1696

There are then omitted images which do not load. The omitted images are for Baptisms and burials 1729-1778 Marriages 1729-1754 Baptisms and burials 1779-1812  Baptisms and burials 1783-1787

Elsewhere under Record Search way point marked 1779-1812 and 1783-1787 two of these items appear for baptisms and burials but the marriages 1729-1754 do not appear to have been loaded.

There is a further series of unloaded marriages and banns for the years Marriages and banns 1792-1805 Marriages 1805-1812 Banns 1805-1823.

Census Records
FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition 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.

to locate local Family History Centres in UK

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.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

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

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

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. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions

 * Depwade Poor Law Union
 * See also England Norfolk Poor Law Union Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Norfolk Poor Law Unions

Registration Districts

 * Depwade

Probate Jurisdictions
Norfolk Probate Jurisdictions Parishes C through F

Maps
England Jurisdictions 1851

Websites

 * Diss on GenUKI