Stoak or Stoke, Cheshire Genealogy

England Cheshire  Cheshire Parishes  Stoke

Parish History
Stoak St Lawrence is an Ancient parish in Cheshire and includes Little Stanney.

A Saxon chapel was originally on the site. It was not mentioned in the Domesday Book but fragments of architecture still present in the 19th century showed that a new church must have been built soon after the Norman conquest. Ormerod quotes sources from the 14th century which stated that at that time the church was "a sumptuous fabric of stone and wood, of great size, with four bells, but was then becoming ruinous". The present church dates from its rebuilding in 1827, undertaken by George Edgecombe (or Edgecumbe), and very little of the original work remains. A further restoration was carried out in 1911–12.

The name may also be spelled Stoke which is the name of the civil parish; the ecclesiastical parish was Stoak.

Stoak is a small village in the civil parish of Stoke, the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester, and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. To its west is the intersection of the M53 and M56 Motorways and to its east the Shropshire Union Canal.

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.

Registration Districts
Great Boughton (1837–69) Chester (1870–1937) West Cheshire (1937–74) Chester and Ellesmere Port (1974–98) Cheshire West (post 1998)

registration events may be searched online at Cheshire BMD

Church records
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.

Parish registers for Stoke, 1573-1964

An index for Cheshire parish registers is available online at FamilySearch Historical Records

Cheshire Record Office reference: P31/1/1-4, P31/2/1-2, P31/3059/1/1-2, P31/3059/2-4, P31/5

Bishop's transcripts for Stoke, 1607-1848

An index for Cheshire, Church of England, Bishop’s transcripts is available online at FamilySearch Historical Records

Records are not in strict chronological order. Some years are missing.

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.

Poor Law Unions

 * Tarvin (previously Great Boughton) Poor Law Union, Cheshire
 * Chester Poor Law Union from 1871-1930

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