West Cowes St. Mary (Isle of Wight), Hampshire Genealogy

Guide to West Cowes, Hampshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
COWES, WEST, a sea-port and chapelry, in the N. division of the parish of Northwood, liberty of West Medina, Isle of Wight division of the county of Southampton, 5 miles (N.) from Newport, and 86 (S. W.) from London. There are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyans, and a Roman Catholic chapel. .

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
West Cowes St. Mary (Isle of Wight) 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 Hampshire Archives and Local Studies.

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