Oxnead, Norfolk Genealogy

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

Parish History
OXNEAD (St. Nicholas), a parish, in the union of Aylsham, hundred of South Erpingham, E. division of Norfolk, 4 miles (S. E.) from Aylsham.

Oxnead St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Norwich.

Oxnead is named for its site on meadows beside a river known to the Britons and Saxons as the Ouse. At the time of the Domesday survey, the estate belonged to Halden and altogether was worth 30 shillings. It was seven furlongs long and six broad and included a church with twenty-four acres of glebe land. At the time of King Stephen, Oxnead belonged to Albert Greslei, from whom it passed to the Hauteyn family. Around 1368, the estate was acquired by Sir Robert de Salle. After Sir Robert’s death, his widow’s second husband, Sir William Clopton, took control of Oxnead and in the 1420s it was sold to William Paston, of Paston.

The church is mostly thirteenth-century and built of flint with stone dressings. However, there are several later additions in brick, dating from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, such as the top of the tower, two porches and a stepped east gable.

Inside, there is a monument to Sir Clement Paston (1515-1597). This is a tomb-chest featuring his recumbent effigy and a kneeing figure of his wife, Lady Alice. There is also a monument to Lady Katherine Paston, wife of Sir William (1610-1663), who died in childbirth in 1637. This work is by the celebrated Jacobean sculptor Nicholas Stone. The church also includes a seventeenth century font.

Onead is now a lost settlement in Norfolk, England, roughly three miles south-east of Aylsham. It now consists mostly of St Michael’s Church and Oxnead Hall. It was the principal residence of the Paston family from 1597 until the death of William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth in 1732. Under Sir William Paston (1610-1663), Oxnead was the site of several works by the architect and sculptor, Nicholas Stone, master-mason to Kings James I and Charles I.

The church survives detached and isolated from parishioners in a rural setting

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
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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. Norfolk Record Office reference PD 161

Registration Districts

 * 1837-1938 Aylsham
 * 1939-1974 Norwich Outer
 * Norwich

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Norfolk ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Norfolk ($)
 * Norfolk Transcription Archive
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * Tinstaafl Baptism Project 1813 to 1880

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1613-1901 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions

 * Aylsham Poor Law Union
 * Norfolk Poor Law Unions

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

Websites

 * Norfolk: Oxnead on GenUKI
 * Oxnead St Michael All Angels on A Church Near You
 * Oxnead on Literary Norfolk
 * British History Online
 * Oxnead on Norfolk Churches