Folkestone Christ Church, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent

Parish History
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway district of Kent and a cross Channel port. Folkestone Wikipedia

Christ Church was formed from Folkestone St Mary and St Eanswythe, Kent Ancient Parish as a church for mariners and fishermen.

The church was consecrated on 27th July 1850 and destroyed by a German bomb on 17th May 1942.

The ruins of Christchurch have been designated as a grade II listed monument British listed building only the tower remains.

As part of the development of the town churches it was followed by Folkestone Holy Trinity and St Peter.

Folkestone Holy Trinity with Christ Church is the United benefice in the Diocese of Canterbury Church website

The Wesleyan Methodist Chapel dates from 1866; Independent Baptist and Society of Friends Chapels were also built.

Civil Registration
Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC) Family History Library film numbers Note that the search for FamilySearch microfilms returns a large number of results for the town and its records as a specific parish search is not possible in the hierarchy of the catalogue arrangement.

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, non conformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records.

Census records
FamilySearch has census index collections and a search within the town and surrounding enumerations districts may be easier than referrring to the Family History Library collection of microfilms.

Census Returns for Folkestone 1841-1891

Poor Law Unions
Elham Poor Law Union, Kent

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent 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
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.