Preston, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

See a "Comprehensive List of Preston Parish's Chapelries"



Parish History
Preston St John the Evangelist is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Lancashire. Other places in the parish include: Elston, Fishwick, Ribbleton Moor, Preston St Andrew, Ribbleton, and Haighton.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

PRESTON (St. John), a parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Amounderness, N. division of the county of Lancaster; comprising the borough of Preston, which has a separate jurisdiction; the six townships of Barton, Elston, Fishwick, Haighton, Ribbleton, and Lea with Ashton, Ingol, and Cottam; and the chapelries of Broughton, and Grimsargh with Brockholes; the whole containing, in the year 1841, 53,482 inhabitants, of whom 50,073 were in the borough, 21 miles (S. by E.) from Lancaster, and 217 (N. W. by N.) from London. For more information...

Preston Guild
The right to hold a Guild Merchant was conferred upon the Burgesses of Preston by a charter of 1179; the associated Preston Guild is a civic celebration held every 20 years, with the next one due in 2012.

Before 1328 a celebration had been held on an irregular basis, but at the Guild of that year it was decreed that subsequent Guilds should be held every twenty years. After this there were breaks in the pattern for various reasons, but an unbroken series were held from 1542 to 1922. A full 400 year sequence was frustrated by the cancellation of the 1942 Guild due to World War II, but the cycle resumed in 1952. The expression '(Once) every Preston Guild', meaning 'very infrequently', has passed into fairly common use, especially in Lancashire.

Guild week is always started by the opening of the Guild Court, which since the Sixteenth century has traditionally been on the first Monday after the feast of the decollation (the beheading) of St John the Baptist celebrated on 29 August. As well as concerts and other exhibitions, the main events are a series of processions through the city. Numerous street parties are typically also held in the locality.

In 1952, the emphasis was on the bright new world emerging after World War II. The major event held in the city's Avenham Park had every school participating, and hundreds of children, from toddlers to teenagers, demonstrated different aspects of physical education in the natural amphitheatre of the park.

In 1972, participants at the Avenham Park celebrations were treated to a low level, low speed, flyby by Concorde.

Archives
Digital Archives

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

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

Newspapers
Newspaper research can supplement or lead to records normally used by researchers to establish birth, marriage, death and addresses.


 * Preston Chronicle

Poor Law Unions
Preston 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