Bristol St James, Gloucestershire Genealogy

Guide to Bristol St James, Gloucestershire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Bristol St James is an Ancient Parish in the county of Gloucestershire. Methodist is the only identified non-Church of England denomination in Bristol St James. The following non-Church of England denominations were located somewhere in Bristol, but the exact parish has not been identified: Calvinistic Methodist, Christians, French Protestant, Jewish, Moravian/United Brethren, Presbyterian, Society of Friends/Quaker, Swedenborgian/New Jerusalem/New Church, and Unitarian. Other places in the parish include: Bristol St James In, Redland, and Bristol St James and St Paul Out.

The Priory Church of St James, Bristol (grid reference ST588734)[2] is a Grade I listed building[1] in Horsefair, Whitson Street.

It was founded in 1129 as a Benedictine priory by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the illegitimate son of Henry I. The nave survives from 1129 but the tower was added around 1374. The south aisle was widened and rebuilt in 1698. The porch dates from the late 18th century, and the north aisle was rebuilt in 1864.[1][2]

Legend has it that every 10th stone brought from Normandy to build the Castle was set aside to build the Priory, and therefore ‘now that the castle has vanished these stones are like an echo from 800 years ago.’[attribution needed]

The building is on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register and described as being in very bad condition.[3]

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
Bristol St James 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.

Records are also available at the Gloucestershire Archives.

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