Kirkham, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Kirkham, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Here is A Comprehensive List of Kirkham Parishes and Chapelries.

Parish History
KIRKHAM (St Michael), a market-town and parish, in the union of the Fylde, hundred of Amounderness, N. division of the county of Lancaster west by north of Preston. Other places in the parish include: Whittingham, Wharles, Brown Moss, Bryning with Kellamergh, Esprick, Great Plumpton, Greehalgh with Thistleton, Greenalgh with Thistleton, Greenhalgh, Larbreck, Little Eccleston, Little Eccleston with Larbreck, Little Ecclestone with Larbrick, Little Plumpton, Medlar with Wesham, Newsham, Newton with Scales, Roseacre, Roseacre and Wharles, Thistleton, Treals, Treals, Roseacre and Wharles, Westby, Westby with Plumpton, Westby with Plumptons, and Ballam.

The earliest evidence of a church on the site is in 684 AD. The fabric of the present church dates from 1822 when the nave, designed by Robert Roper, an architect from Preston, was built. In 1844 the tower and spire, designed by the Lancaster architect Edmund Sharpe, were added at the west end. In 1853 the chancel was rebuilt, probably by Joseph Hansom, to make the altar visible from the nave. The north and south galleries were removed in the middle of the 20th century and the area under the west gallery has been turned into a separate room. In 2004 it was discovered that the spire had developed structural problems because the iron ties reinforcing the stones had corroded. An appeal to repair the spire was launched and the work is now complete.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Church records
Online Records
 * 1538 - 1910 at FamilySearch — index
 * 1603 - 1910 at FamilySearch — index and images

Kirkham St Michael's 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

Original copies of the parish registers for Kirkham St Michael and its attached smaller chapelries' registers are held at the Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, PR2 1RE.

In addition, the Family History Library, at FamilySearch in Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A. also has microfilm copies of these originals and these may be circulated to any one of its 4,600 satellite FamilySearch Centres worldwide.

Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the FamilySearch Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Poor Law Unions
Fylde 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