Axbridge, Somerset Genealogy

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

Parish History
AXBRIDGE (St. John the Baptist), a market town and parish, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, locally in the hundred of Winterstoke, E. division of Somerset, 18 miles (S. by W.) from Bristol, and 130 (W. by S.) from London. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans.



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
Church records are the main source for identifying people prior to 1837 when civil registration began. It is also a main source after 1837 in conjunction with civil registration. The Church of England was formed in 1536, after King Henry VIII severed all ties to the church in Rome. Each local parish was responsible to register all marriages, baptisms and burials starting in 1538.

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

Church records on microfilm
Bishops Transcripts



Church Vital Records



Church Accounts



Poor law Union
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 placed the responsibility for the care of the poor in England and Wales, from 1834 onward, on Poor Law Unions. The Poor Law Unions and their workhouses took over this responsibility from the Church of England parishes. Prior to 1834 a few parishes or collections of parishes had established a few workhouses to help relieve the poor and provide indoor relief in the form of food, clothes and shelter.



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

Tax Records
In 1692 the British government instituted another innovative scheme to increase revenue which came to be known as the land tax.



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
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SOM/Axbridge/index.html