Witton, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
WITTON, a township, in the parish, union, and Lower division of the hundred, of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 2 miles (W. N. W.) from Blackburn, on the road to Preston; containing 1073 inhabitants. This township comprises about 650 acres, mostly pasture and meadow land, and includes Billinge Hill and Billinge-End, a lofty ridge 633 feet above the level of the sea: there are several excellent quarries of stone. Witton House, an elegant stone edifice, is the seat of Joseph Feilden, Esq.; it is picturesquely situated, and surrounded by a finely-wooded park of 500 acres. The river Derwtnt flows through the park, and the Blackwater here empties itself into it. A district church, dedicated to St. Mark, was built in 1840; it cost £2000, and is in the Romanesque style: the eastern window has a representation of St. Mark. The living is a perpetual curacy, with a net income of £150; patron, the Vicar of Blackburn. Attached to the church are an infant school, which is also a Sunday school for boys; and a school of industry, used on Sundays as a girls' school.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 636-639. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51420 Date accessed: 03 August 2010.

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
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Census records
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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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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