Wingham, Kent Genealogy

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

Parish History
WINGHAM (St. Mary), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of Eastry, hundred of Wingham, lathe of St. Augustine, E division of Kent, 9 miles SE from Canterbury.

Wingham is a village and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, see Wingham Kent Wikipedia

Wingham St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Canterbury; a map of the parish boundary is available.

The church is 13th century with a 14th century tower and 16th century extension. The church was restored in 1874-1875 by Ferrey and is designated a grade I listed building by English Heritage British listed Building.

The village and civil parish is close to Canterbury and was the site of Wingham colliery in the Kent coalfield which failed in production and was closed in 1948.

See Kent Archaeological Society and Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 224-241. at British History Online and Kent Churches website

Civil Registration
Eastry Registration District and Thanet Registration District

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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

Land Tax
Images for Wingham are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1832

Census records
Census Returns for Wingham 1841-1891

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.


 * Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK.
 * Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK.
 * Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable).

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.


 * Ancestry UK Census Collection.
 * Find my Past census search 1841-1901.

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats, merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved.

Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.
 * Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions

 * Eastry Poor Law Union, Kent

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

 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites

 * Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)