Urswick, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Parish History
Urswick St Mary and St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire.

Other places in the parish include: Adgarley, Bardsea, Birkrig Common, Stainton, Great Urswick, Little Urswick, and Bolton with Adgarley.

A number of explanations have been suggested for Urswick's name. The '-wick' element is perhaps from the Old English wic meaning 'farm' or 'trading centre', an element commonly found in settlements on or near Roman roads (see below). It has been suggested that the first element may mean 'bison lake' from Old English ur + sǣ. However, an alternative explanation has been proposed which incorporates the first definite historical reference to the ancient estate that incorporated the present Urswick villages - Chiluestreuic - from the Domesday survey.

The name 'Great Urswick' originated as 'Much Urswick', not because of its size but because of its association with Michael le Fleming. The village was an original part of Michael's lands, granted to him before 1111 by Henry I, whilst Little Urswick belonged to Stephen of Blois and later Furness Abbey. The name 'Much Urswick', meaning 'Michael's Urswick', was used to differentiate between the lands of Michael and Furness Abbey.

The villages of Great Urswick and Little Urswick, together called Urswick, are located in the Furness peninsula in Cumbria since 1974 (historically in Lancashire). They are situated to the south-west of the town of Ulverston.

Great Urswick is situated along the north and west sides of Urswick Tarn.

URSWICK St Mary [1608], a parish, in the union of Ulverston, hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 3 miles southwest by south of Ulverston; containing, the hamlet of Little Urswick. The church, which was repewed in 1826, is situated between the villages of Great and Little Urswick.

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.

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Online Records (Under Construction)
Urswick St. Mary &amp; St. Michael parish registers and those registers of all of its smaller chapelries lying within its boundaries have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

Original Records
The Lancashire Record Office at Bow Lane, Preston PR2 1RE, holds the original parish registers in its vast collections. Contact their website for contact information.

The Family History Library has microfilmed the parish registers and Bishop's transcripts of Urswick St. Mary &amp; St. Michael parish for the years 1608-1901. These films are available for ordering/circulating and researching at any one of its satellite FamilySearch Centers worldwide.

Census records
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Ulverston Poor Law Union,Lancashire

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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain