Dorset, England Genealogy

England Dorset

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

Dorset (or archaically Dorsetshire) is a maritime county located in South West England on the English Channel coast.

Jurisdictions
Use an interactive map to find jurisdictions for each parish in Dorset.

Civil Districts
Prior to 1889 Dorset was divided into hundreds, liberties and boroughs. See Dorset Civil Divisions.

When civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in 1837, Dorset was divided into a number of registration districts, each containing several parishes. The index to the civil records gives the name of the district where an event took place. GENUKI have produced a list civil registration districts in Dorset and the parishes covered by each.

Read more about England Civil Registration.

Parishes
See a list of the parishes of Dorset with links to articles.

Dorset Online Parish Clerks: Transriptions from original data available at the Dorset History Centre.

Probate Jurisdictions
Before 1858, every town and parish in Dorset was under the probate jurisdiction of several ecclesiastical courts. To read more about probate records and see a list of Dorset towns and parishes and the probate courts that had jurisdiction over them, go to Dorset Probate Records.

Websites

 * Dorset Resources and help pages on RootsChat Dorset Resources and help pages. (Free).

To view a further list of web sites and/or web pages for Dorsetshire and many of its parishes, visit FHLFavorites.info.