Brighton St Nicholas, Sussex Genealogy

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

Parish History
BRIGHTON (St. Nicholas), a sea-port, borough, market-town, and parish, in the hundred of Whalesbone, rape of Lewes, E. division of Sussex, 30 miles (E.) from Chichester, and 52 (S.) from London; There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, the Society of Friends, the Connection of the Countess of Huntingdon, Huntingtonians, Scottish Seceders, Wesleyans, and others; also Bethel chapel, belonging to the Mariners' Friend Society; a Roman Catholic chapel, and a synagogue.

Brighton St Nicholas is the Ancient parish for the market town and later seaside resort of Brighton in Sussex.

Church history Brighton St Nicholas (old)

and Brighton St Nicholas Saltdean

See also: An introduction to Brighton's church history Brighton churches and Brighton and Hove Wikipedia

For researchers, here is an important 19th century jurisdictional perspective:

BRIGHTON (St Nicholas), a sea-port, borough, market-town, and parish, in the hundred of Whalesbone, rape of Lewes, E. division of Sussex, 30 miles (E.) from Chichester, and 52 (S.) from London. This place, in the Saxon Brighthelmstun, in Domesday book Bristlemeston, and now, by contraction, generally Brighton, is supposed to have taken its name from the Saxon bishop, Brighthelme, who resided in the vicinity.

The town is pleasantly situated on elevated ground rising gently on the east and west from a level called the Steyne, supposed to have been the line of the ancient Stayne-street, or Roman road from Arundel to Dorking. Brighton extends to Kemp Town, in the extreme east, with a square, in the extreme west, towards Hove.

St Nicholas (1538) parish with West Blatchington consolidated had several chapels of ease (each with registers of baptisms and burials, and some marriages) according the noted topographer, Samuel Lewis (and other 19th century sources) which subdivided its ancient parish boundary'''. These included:'''


 * Brighton All Saints' Church, West Street - 1846
 * Brighton All Souls, Upper Edward Street - 1833
 * Brighton Christ-Church Montpelier-Road - 1838
 * Holy Trinity, Ship Street - 1826
 * Pavilion Royal Chapel - 1823
 * Brighton St Andrew's, Waterloo-Street - 1831; chapelry mostly in Brighton, but partly in Hove parish.
 * Brighton St Bartholomew - 1874
 * Brighton St James, in St James's Street - by 1848
 * Brighton St George, Kemp Town - 1826
 * Brighton St John the Evangelist, Carlton-Hill -1846
 * Brighton St Margaret's, Cannon Place - 1827
 * Brighton St Mark - 1848
 * Brighton St Martin - 1875
 * Brighton St Mary, St James Street - 1878
 * Brighton St Michael &amp; All Angels - 1862
 * Brighton St Paul - 1848
 * Brighton St Peter's - 1827
 * Brighton St Peter Preston Village - 1793
 * Brighton St Stephen's - 1857
 * The County Hospital Chapel

Sussex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)and Saltdean Sussex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Church Records
Brighton St Nicholas 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 West Sussex Record Office and The Keep (which houses the collections of the East Sussex Record Office).

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.

From 1837 this parish was in the Brighton registration distict Certificates can be ordered from Brighton &amp; Hove The Register Office Brighton Town Hall Bartholomew Square Brighton BN1 1JA

Phone01273 292016

Fax 01273 292019

Email:register.office@brighton hove.gov.uk

Poor Law Unions
Brighton 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.

Taxation
Brighton Residents - the 1662 Hearth Tax. A list of householders along with the number of hearths in their houses. More detail is available in the original record. Article to be found in Sussex Family Historian, vol.7, Sept. 1974 pages 213-216, Family History Library Ref. 942.25 B2su

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