Werneth, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
WERNETH, an ecclesiastical district, in the parochial chapelry and poor-law union of Oldham, parish of Prestwich, hundred of Salford, S. division of Lancashire, adjoining the town of Oldham. This place, anciently Fernet, was held in the reign of Henry III. by Alwardus de Aldholme, founder of the family of Oldham. His daughter and co-heiress conveyed the manor to the Cudworths, a branch of a Yorkshire family; and from them the estate passed by sale to Sir Ralph Assheton, of Middleton. It afterwards passed to the Listers; was purchased by Messrs. Parker and Sidebottom, of London, for £25,000; and by them was sold, in 1794, to the Lees family, of Oldham, for £30,000. John Frederick Lees, Esq., is the present lord. Werneth consists of about 100 acres; it abounds in the very best coal, and there are several good stone-quarries. The ecclesiastical district, which comprehends part of the town of Oldham, and part of the adjacent open country, was constituted in 1845, under the act 6th and 7th Victoria, cap. 37. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of the Crown and the Bishop of Manchester, alternately; income, £130. Divine service is for the present performed in a room licensed by the bishop. The Baptists have a place of worship.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 513-517. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51389 Date accessed: 03 August 2010.

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
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Census records
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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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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