Banwell, Somerset Genealogy

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

Parish History
BANWELL, a village, a parish, and a subdistrict, in the district of Axbridge, Somerset. The village stands under Banwell Hill, at the NW extremity of the Mendip range, 3 miles SE of the Bristol and Exeter railway, and 4 NNW of Axbridge. There is a Wesleyan 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.

Church records
Banwell 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.

Information about the parish may be found on Somerset Online Parish Clerks. Records are also available at the Somerset Archives and Local Studies.

Church records on microfilm
Wesleyan mentioned in these records is Methodist denomination.

Bishops Transcripts



Parish Registers



Church Vital Records



Churchwarden Records



Chapel Accounts



Poor Law Union
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 placed the responsibility for the care of the poor in England and Wales, from 1834 onward, on Poor Law Unions. The Poor Law Unions and their workhouses took over this responsibility from the Church of England parishes. Prior to 1834 a few parishes or collections of parishes had established a few workhouses to help relieve the poor and provide indoor relief in the form of food, clothes and shelter.



Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Somerset Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Tax Records
In 1692 the British government instituted another innovative scheme to increase revenue which came to be known as the land tax.



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/SOM/Banwell/index.html