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England Sheffield (city)

Guide to Sheffield (city) history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



HISTORY
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough in what is now South Yorkshire, England. Historically just within the county of Yorkshire, and part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city.

The area that is now occupied by the City of Sheffield is believed to have been inhabited since at least the late Upper Palaeolithic period, about 12,800 years ago.

The earliest evidence of human occupation in the Sheffield area was found at Creswell Crags to the east of the city. In the Iron Age the area became the southernmost territory of the Pennine tribe called the Brigantes.

A Celtic presence within the Sheffield area is evidenced by two settlements called Wales and Waleswood close to Sheffield.

However the settlements that grew and merged to form Sheffield date from the second half of the first millennium, and are of Anglo-Saxon and Danish origin. Much of the area now known as Yorkshire had major invasions from the marauding Viking hordes.

In Anglo-Saxon times, the Sheffield area straddled the border between the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria.

After the Norman conquest, Sheffield Castle was built to protect the local settlements, and a small town developed that is the nucleus of the modern city.

The population of the town grew rapidly throughout the 19th century; increasing from 60,095 in 1801 to 451,195 by 1901.

However growth created many problems, including the collapse of the dam wall of one of these reservoirs in 1864 resulted in the Great Sheffield Flood, which killed 270 people and devastated large parts of the town.

LOCATION
Sheffield city is located in several folds in the hills that lead up to the Penine backbone of England. The city nestles in a natural amphitheater created by the surrounding hills and at the confluence of five rivers: the Don, the Sheaf, the Rivelin, the Loxley and the Porter. As such, much of the city is built on hillsides with views into the city center or out to the countryside. Initially the rivers were also a source of hydraulic power at the start of the Industrial Revolution.

The southern and western borders of the city are shared with Derbyshire; in the first half of the 20th century Sheffield extended its borders south into Derbyshire, annexing a number of villages, including Totley, Dore, and the area now known as Mosborough Townships.

RELIGION
Sheffield has no known preferences historically. While nominally the Church of England is the largest religious group, the city is not known for its religious activity.

In terms of religion, 53% of the population are Christian, 6% are Muslim, 0.6% are Hindu, 0.4% are Buddhist, 0.2% are Sikh, 0.1% are Jewish, 0.4% belong to another religion, 31% have no religion and 7% did not state their religion.

INDUSTRY
Sheffield is the quintessential example of an English city that was ideally suited for the Industrial Revolution. Initially small cottage Industries were founded nearby, but these were rapidly annexed into the growing city.

In the 14th century, Sheffield was already noted for the production of knives, as mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. By the early 1600s it had become the main center of cutlery manufacture in England outside of London, overseen by the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire.

The fact that there are a number of collieries close to Sheffield, as well as access to Yorkshire iron ore, provided the impetus for the rapid growth of the steel industry.

Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet is a Museum location within the city of Sheffield that exemplifies the conditions found in a village at the start of the Industrial Revolution.



During the 1740s, a form of the crucible steel process was discovered that allowed the manufacture of a better quality of steel than had previously been possible. Sheffield became the center of high quality steel for the whole of the U.K. This process was rendered obsolete in 1856 by Henry Bessemer's invention of the Bessemer converter, also a Sheffield invention.

While iron and steel have long been the main industries of Sheffield, coal mining has also been a major industry, particularly in the outlying areas, and the Palace of Westminster in London was built using limestone from quarries in the nearby village of Anston.

Following the rapid decline of the steel industry in the UK during the last 50 years of the twentieth century, Sheffield has had to re-invent itself.

Sheffield organized the Advanced Manufacturing Park in cooperation with Sheffield's universities and other independent research organizations. Organizations located on the AMP include the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC, a research partnership between the Boeing Company and the University of Sheffield), Castings Technology International (Cti) and TWI.

Sheffield is now a major retail center, with most of the UK's main High Street Shopping organizations represented. A number of old steel facilities have bee rebuilt as shopping malls, and function as shopping centers for the region.

Sheffield recently built a District Energy system that exploits the city's domestic waste, by incinerating it and converting the energy from it to electricity. It also provides hot water from the cooling of the turbines, and this is distributed through over 25 miles (40 km) of pipes under the city, via two networks.

CIVIL REGISTRATION
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The following link provides access for Aberdeen:


 * Aberdeen BMD records

CENSUS RECORDS
Census records for Aberdeen can be found using the following link:


 * Aberdeen Census Records

PROBATE RECORDS
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. See the following link for Aberdeen:


 * Aberdeen Probate Records

CEMETERIES AND GRAVES
There are 3 cemeteries in the area of Aberdeen. The link follows:


 * Aberdeen Cemeteries

Other useful sites follow:


 * Finda grave Aberdeen


 * Aberdeen grave records


 * Scottish Family History Asociation Records for Aberdeen

GENEALOGY SOCIETIES AND GENEALOGY

 * Scotland's People


 * Aberdeen and North East Scotland Family History Society


 * Genuki.org, Scotland


 * Ancestry.com for Scotland