Church Kirk, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes



Chapelry History
Church Kirk St James was created a chapel of ease by 1600, taken from and lying within the boundaries of Whalley Ancient Parish.

Other places in the parish include: Oswaldtwistle and Huncoat.

"CHURCH, a township, in the parish of Whalley, union, and Lower division of the hundred, of Blackburn, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 4¾ miles (E.) from Blackburn; containing 1545 persons. This township, and the townships of Huncoat and Oswaldtwistle, form the parochial chapelry of ChurchKirk, comprising 8667 inhabitants. The district is subject to the honor of Clitheroe, and yields suit and service to the court of Accrington. The printing of calicoes, and power-loom and hand-loom weaving, are the principal manufactures. The Leeds and Liverpool canal, which extends along the northern margin of Church and Oswaldtwistle, opens a communication to the eastern and western seas. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £218; patrons, the Trustees of William Hulme: the chapel is dedicated to St. James, and is a plain structure with an antique castellated tower; the body was rebuilt in 1804. Emmanuel church was built at Oswaldtwistle in 1837; the patronage is vested in five Trustees. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. At Church, Oswaldtwistle, Cabin-End, and Daisy-Green, are national schools; and at Fox-Hill Bank is an infants' school."

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 607-612. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50877 Date accessed: 29 June 2010.

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/

Church records
Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Parish registers for Church, 1633-1948 Microfilm of original records at the Lancashire Record Office, Preston. Church is a township-chapelry in the parish of Whalley. Lancashire Record Office call nos. : PR 457-464; 3037/1/1-9, 11-18, 23-27; 3063/1/4

Bishop's transcripts of the chapelry of Church, 1600-1877. Microfilm of original records at the Lancashire Record Office, Preston. Includes records of Christ Church in Chatburn. Church is a township-chapelry in Whalley parish.

Census records
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Blackburn 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

Web sites
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.