Overton, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Parish History
Overton St Helen is an ancient parochial chapel created in the late 13th century. It stands in the boundaries of Lancaster St Mary ancient parish. Other places in the parish include: Sunderland, Heaton with Oxcliffe, Middleton, and Saltmarshes.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

Here is an 1848 historical perspective of Overton by the topographer, Samuel A. Lewis:

"OVERTON, a township, in the parish and union of Lancaster, hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, N. division of Lancashire, 4½ miles (S. W.) from Lancaster; containing 390 inhabitants. In the reign of Henry III., Adam de Overton held lands here; and here, also, the priory of Lancaster had a grange, the site of which appears to have been granted to the monks about 1272. The township comprises 680 acres, of which two-thirds are arable, and the remainder pasture; and occupies a peninsula formed by the river Lune and Morecambe bay. Sunderland, a village in the township, at the mouth of the Lune, is approached by a dangerous ford over a small bay, scarcely passable except when the tide has retired. About the early part of the last century, Sunderland was the port of Lancaster; and it flourished many years by a prosperous coasting-trade and a ropery, until the removal of the dependent customhouse and the shipping to the new dock constructed in 1787, at Glasson, on the opposite side of the river. Sunderland declined so much afterwards as to be called Cape Famine; but it has in some measure revived. The parochial chapelry of Overton [built by 1678] comprises the townships of Overton, Middleton, and Heaton with Oxcliffe. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £155; patron, the Vicar of Lancaster. The chapel is a very ancient building, with a fine Saxon porch, and a campanile tower."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England By Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 498-500. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51199 Date accessed: 20 July 2010.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
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. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Lancaster Poor Law Union,Lancashire

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

Web sites
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.