Dover St Mary the Virgin, Kent Genealogy

England   Kent    Kent Parishes



Parish History
DOVOR, or Dover, one of the cinque-ports, a borough and market-town, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, locally in the lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 15 miles (S. E. by S.) from Canterbury, and 71 (E. S. E.) from London. The town formerly consisted of the parishes of St. James the Apostle, St. Mary the Virgin, St. John, St. Martin the Greater, St. Martin the Less, St. Nicholas, and St. Peter; of these, the five last no longer exist, and the churches have been demolished.There are places of worship for General and Particular Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics.

Dover is a town and civil parish and the administrative centre of Dover district in the County of Kent, see Dover Wikipedia for history and description of the town and port.

Dover St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish and one of the two surviving churches with Dover St James the Apostle, Kent of the original six town parochial churches described by Edward Hasted (see link below)

A map of the parish boundary is available at A church near you

The Parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Biggin Street, Dover has been designated as a grade II* listed building British listed building

See also Edward Hasted 'The town and port of Dover', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 475-548 at British History Online and Kent Churches website

Civil Registration
See Dover Registration District

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Dover St John Mariner parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Census records
Census returns for Dover, 1841-1891 generic census microfilm collection in the Family History Library for the town

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. to locate local Family History Centres in UK to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
Edward Hasted describes the formation of the town workhouse in 1726 ['The town and port of Dover', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 475-548. at British History Online

Dover Poor Law Union, Kent

The Family History Library includes filming of

Admissions and discharges, births, deaths and religious creed registers of the Workhouse at Buckland, 1835-1914 Dover Poor Law Union whose records are held at the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, England.The workhouse is in the parish of Buckland in the district of Dover. Kent Archives Office reference at date of microfilming (1991) GI Do/WIA 1-19; WIB 1-2; WIC 1; WID 1.

In adddition The Family History Library has microfilm of Parish chest records, 1611-1858 for Dover which were microfilmed at Canterbury Cathedral Archives in 1992 under reference U3/30/4/1, U3/30/8/1-5, U3/30/13/1-3, U3/30/16/1-2, U3/30/18/1-40, U3/30/19/1, U3/30/25/1

See England, Kent, Workhouse Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

See England, Kent, Wills and Probate (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Local Family History Centre
Canterbury Family History Centre, Kent

Maidstone Family History Centre, Kent


 * FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.
 * Publication of the restricted access images England, Kent, Wills and Probate (FamilySearch Historical Records) and England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments (FamilySearch Historical Records) means that it is advisable to telephone the centre to reserve a computer if you wish to view these

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