Downton, Wiltshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
DOWNTON (St. Lawrence), a parish, and formerly a borough, in the union of Alderbury, hundred of Downton, Salisbury and Amesbury, and S. divisions of Wilts, 6 miles (S. S. E.) from Salisbury, and 88 (S. W.) from London. There are places of worship for General and Particular Baptists, and 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
Downton parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Information about the parish may be found on Wiltshire Online Parish Clerks. Records are also available at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Wiltshire 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