Halifax St James, Yorkshire Genealogy

Guide to Halifax St James, Yorkshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
The district church of St. James lay within Halifax St John the Baptist Parish, and "was erected in 1831, at an expense of £4122, partly defrayed by subscription, but chiefly by grant from the Parliamentary Commissioners; it is in the later English style, with two turrets crowned by domes, and contains 1200 sittings. The living is a perpetual curacy; patron, the Vicar of Halifax; net income, £200, with a house, erected in the Elizabethan style, at a cost of £1200."

From: Samuel A. Lewis Topographical Dictionary of England [1848]

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.

Church records
Halifax St James 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 Yorkshire Archive Service.

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