Macclesfield, Christ Church, Cheshire Genealogy

England Cheshire  Cheshire Parishes  Macclesfield, Christ Church

Guide to Macclesfield Christ Church, Cheshire family history and genealogy: parish registers (baptism, christening, marriage, and burial records), civil registration (birth, marriage, and death records), census records, history, wills, cemetery, online transcriptions and indexes, an interactive map and websites.



Parish History
MACCLESFIELD, is a town, a township, four chapelries, and a district, in Cheshire. It dates from ancient times.

There are Independents,Wesleyan's, and New Connexion Methodist chapels; as well as United Free Methodist, Baptist, Quakers', Primitive Methodist, Independent Methodist and Unitarian chapels. As well as a Roman Catholic church, and a W Lady-chapel; it contains three chapels, for respectively Churchmen, and Dissenters.

The four chapelries of Macclesfield are St. Michael, St. Paul, St. Peter, and Christ church.The parts of the town beyond Macclesfield township are in the chapelries of Sutton-St. George and Hurdsfield; and all the six chapelries are in Prestbury parish.

Great King Street. Founded 1775 as a chapel to Macclesfield, St Michael's, becoming the parish church for part of Macclesfield in 1888; closed in 1983.

In the second half of the 18th century the parish church of Macclesfield. In 1772 David Simpson was appointed curate to the church but was deprived of his curacy because of his evangelical beliefs and preaching. Simpson had been invited to Macclesfield by Charles Roe. Roe built Christ Church for David Simpson, who became its first vicar.

David Simpson was a close friend of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Unusually for an Anglican church.

Following the closure of the church in 1983, the graveyard was reclaimed as an area of open space. This involved the exhumation of at least some of the corpses buried in the graveyard.

Church records
Macclesfield, Christ Church chapelry registers of christenings, marriages and burials have been indexed by the following groups:

To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Cheshire Record Office Reference P 84 Macclesfield Christ Church Parish Date 16th century - 20th century Registers: C 1775-1983, Marriages 1889-1982, Burials 1776-1961. Records other than registers 1599-1983 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=017-p84&amp;cid=0

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from 1 July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. Here are two excellent Internet sites with birth, marriage and death indexes available:


 * FreeBMD
 * Cheshire BMD

Poor Law Unions

 * Macclesfield

For more information on the history of the workhouse, see Peter Higginbotham's web site: www.workhouses.org.uk and Macclesfield

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

see also England Cheshire Probate Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

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