Chesterfield, Derbyshire Genealogy

Guide to Chesterfield, Derbyshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Chesterfield St Mary and All Saints is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Derbyshire. Other places in the parish include: Calow, Newbold, Newbold and Dunston, Newbold and Dunston, Tapton, and Walton.

Chesterfield is perhaps best known for the "Crooked Spire" of its Church of Saint Mary and All Saints and is why the local football team is known as The Spireites.

The spire is both twisted and leaning, twisting 45 degrees and leaning 9 feet 6 inches (2.90 m) from its true centre. The cause is probably because the spire was added to the tower by inexperienced craftsmen using unseasoned timber and insufficient cross bracing. The effect of sun also distorted the timber roof. When slate and lead tiling was added this increased the rate of bend and twist. It is probably the most recognisable church spire in the country.

CHESTERFIELD (All Saints), a parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Scarsdale, N. division of the county of Derby; comprising the incorporated market-town of Chesterfield, which has a separate jurisdiction, and the townships of Calow, Hasland,Newbold with Dunstan, Tapton, Temple-Normanton, and Walton. Portions of the hamlets of Walton and Newbold, and the contiguous parts of the parish of Brampton, have been consolidated as a district to the new church of St. Thomas, Brampton. In 1838, a church was built and dedicated to the Holy Trinity. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, and Unitarians.

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
Chesterfield parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

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

Records are also available at the Derbyshire Record Office.

Non-Conformist Churches

 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
 * Independent/Congregational
 * Roman Catholic

The following non-Church of England denominations were located somewhere in Chesterfield, but the exact parish has not been identified.


 * Baptist
 * Presbyterian
 * Roman Catholic
 * Sandemanian
 * Society of Friends/Quaker
 * Wesleyan Methodist

Genealogy
Dracos, Elizabeth. A Lancashire Family: Bond of Preston and Lancaster. History and family tree of Edward Bond and Ellen Willasey, dating from 1696-1986, with the following surnames: Dickinson, Sumner, Hetherington, Pickering, Newsam, Ward, Webber, Goldie, Percy, Taylor, Ryder, Dracos, Proctor, Pickard, Godsiff, Jordan, and Paris, with a branch emigrating to New Zealand, and Cape Town, South Africa. Article in The Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Soc. vol.8, no.2. pages 18-25, Family History Library Ref. 942.72 B2r

Occupations
Chesterfield Canal Boat Registers. A register of all Boats, Barges and other Vessels used on navigable rivers and inland Navigation, and number of men employed on board, 1795 listing for Chesterfield Canal, Co. Derby to Rivert Trent at or near Stockwith, Nottinghamshire, with an alphabetical listing at the end, dating from 1795-1877, avaliable in Nottinghamshire Family History Society vol. 110, pages 1-105, Family History Library Ref. 942.52 D25n

Poor Law Unions
Chesterfield Poor Law Union, Derbyshire

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

Websites
Chesterfield on GENUKI

Genealogy &amp; History Chesterfield &amp; District Family History Society