Walney, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Walney, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapelry History
WALNEY, ISLE OF, a chapelry, in the parish of Dalton-in-Furness, union of Ulverston, hundred of Lonsdale north of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 5 miles southwest of Dalton in Furness, Lancashire. It was created a chapel of ease in 1742. The church is situated in Vickerstown which was an estate for worker housing constructed for workers at the Barrow shipyards and docks owned at the time by the Vickers company. Other places in the parish include: Barrow, Barrow Island, Biggar, Walney Island, Peel, Piel Island, and Hawcoat Division.

The name Walney comes from the Old Norse valna ey, which means "Isle of the British". This name would have been given when Norse settlers were present in the area during the Viking Age. One of the main areas of settlement, Biggar Village has been inhabited since at least the 11th century. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Hougenai, or "island of Hougun" from the Old Norse word haugr meaning mound or hill.

The island is around eleven miles long and less than a mile wide at its widest point. It lies in the Irish Sea to the west of the Furness peninsula in north-west England. Until 1974 both the island and the peninsula were a detached part of the county of Lancashire but is now in Cumbria, the island being part of the borough of Barrow-in-Furness to which it has been connected by bridge (Jubilee Bridge) since 1908. Jubilee Bridge spans Walney Channel and until its commission, a ferry was used in order to cross the channel.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
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 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day.
 * See England Civil Registration for online resources and information.

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

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Chapelry is a church or churches built in a large ecclesiastical parish to help the members attend worship services closer to their homes.

Online Parish Records Table

Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Lancashire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Lancashire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * OnLine Parish Clerks - Lancashire - OnLine Parish Clerks project for Lancashire

Non-Conformist Churches (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions
Ulverston 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