Balcombe, Sussex Genealogy

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

Parish History
BALCOMB (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Cuckfield, partly in the hundred of Street, but chiefly in the hundred of Buttinghill, rape of Lewes, E. division of Sussex, 4 miles (N.) from Cuckfield. . It is an Ancient Parish in West Sussex. A history of the church can be found at Vision of Britain through Time. . It has been designated as a grade I listed building.

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.

This parish was part of Cuckfield registration district from September 1837. see further details To apply for certificates please contact West Sussex Centralized Certificates Office Registration Service West Sussex Record Office County Hall Chichester PO19 1RN 01243 642122

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

West Sussex Record Office has deposited parish Registers Bap 1540-1943 Marr 1540-1969 Bur 1539-1928 Bishop's Transcripts 1606-1893 Link to the FamilySearch Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection

Land Tax 1785. A list of owners and occupiers and places within the Parish. This article to be found in Sussex Family Historian Magazine, vol. 1 #3, Dec. 1973, page 7-10, Family History Library Ref. 942.52 B2su

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 West Sussex Record Office and The Keep (which houses the collections of the East Sussex Record Office).

Poor Law Unions
Cuckfield Poor Law Union, Sussex

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