Tunstall, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Parish History
Tunstall St John the Baptist is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire. Other places in the parish include: Burrow, Cantsfield, and Burrow with Burrow.

A church at Tunstall is recorded in the Domesday survey but the oldest structure in the present church dates from the 13th century. The church was rebuilt around 1415 by Sir Thomas Tunstal. Alterations were made in the 16th century and the church was restored in 1907.

The church has associations with the Bronte sisters, several of whom attended here briefly whilst at school at nearby Cowan Bridge in 1824. Charlotte Bronte probably used their experiences as inspiration for "Jane Eyre". The sisters may have eaten their lunch in the small room above the entrance porch after services.

The Parish is in the united benefice of East Lonsdale, in the deanery of Tunstall, the archdeaconry of Lancaster and the diocese of Blackburn. The benefice of East Lonsdale combines this church with St Peter, Leck, St Wilfrid, Melling, St James the Less, Tatham, The Good Shepherd, Lowgill, and Holy Trinity, Wray.

"TUNSTALL St John the Baptist, a parish, in the union of Lancaster, hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, N. division of Lancashire; containing, with the chapelry of Leek, and the townships of Burrow with Burrow, and Cantsfield, 3¾ miles south from Kirkby Lonsdale." At Leek is a separate chapel.

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

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

Online Records (Under Construction)
Tunstall St. John the Baptist 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:

[ FS = FamilySearch.org; LOPC = Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project; FMP = FindMyPast.co.uk; LBMD = Lancashire BMD.org.uk; AC = Ancestry.co.uk;undefinedFreeReg ] undefined

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 Tunstall St. John the Baptist parish for the years 1626-1843. These films are available for ordering/circulating and researching at any one of its satellite FamilySearch Centers worldwide.

Census records
Surname Index for 1841-1901 provided by Ingleborough Archaeology Freebooters. These surnames were gleaned from the images in Burrow census enumerators books 1841-1901 which is included in Tunstall area.

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

Poor Law Unions
Lunesdale 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