Kenchester, Herefordshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
KENCHESTER (St. Michael), a parish, in the hundred of Grimsworth, union and county of Hereford, 5 miles (W. N. W.) from Hereford. At different periods large vaults, tessellated pavements, a fine Mosaic floor, relics of pottery, urns, and large bones, have been discovered. An hypocaust, about seven feet square, with the leaden pipes entire, and those of brick measuring a foot in length and three inches square, was found in 1670; and at the close of the last century, a stone altar was dug up from the foundation of the northern wall of the station, bearing an inscription implying its dedication to the Emperor Cæsar Marcus Aurelius.

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
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records.

Link to the FamilySearch Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
See Herefordshire Census

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through the FHC Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK

Introduction to LDS Family History Centers to locate outside UK.

Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Poor Law Unions
Hereford Poor Law Union, Herefordshire

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

Websites
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/Kenchester/index.html