North Petherton, Somerset Genealogy

England Somerset

Parish History
North Petherton St Mary is an Ancient Parish in the county of Somerset. Other places in the parish include: Buckland Fee, Huntworth, Moorland, Petherton Limit, Shearston, Town Denison, Tuckerton, Weolmersdon, West Newton, Woolmersdon, and Bankland.

PETHERTON, NORTH (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Bridgwater, hundred of North Petherton, W. division of Somerset, 3¼ miles (S. by W.) from Bridgwater; containing 3759 inhabitants, and comprising 10,500 acres. The navigable river Parret, the Bridgwater and Taunton canal, and the Bristol and Exeter railway, pass through the parish. The village consists of a well-built street on the road from Bridgwater to Taunton; it had formerly a large market for corn, and two considerable fairs are still held for cattle and pedlery, on May 1st and the Monday before November 30th. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £27. 7. 11.; patron and incumbent, the Rev. J. J. Toogood; impropriators, the landowners. The great tithes have been commuted for £1018. 16., and the vicarial for £896. 16.; £70 also are payable to the incumbent of North Newton, a chapelry in the parish. The church is a fine structure with a lofty and very handsome tower, in the later English style. At Northmoor-Green is a district chapel dedicated to St. Peter and St. John, consecrated in October 1844: the living is in the Vicar's gift. Thomas Wroth, in 1721, bequeathed £500 for clothing and educating twenty boys. The celebrated sculptor, John Bacon, was descended from a family who possessed the estate of Maursell, in this parish; and several of the name lie buried in the church, where are monuments to their memory.

From: 'Peter, St. - Petworth', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 558-564. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51211 Date accessed: 13 March 2011.

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
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Census records
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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.

Maps and Gazetteers
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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