Westminster St Stephen's Royal Chapel, Middlesex Genealogy

Guide to Westminster St Stephen's Royal Chapel, Middlesex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Parish History
Westminster - St Stephen's Royal Chapel. The House of Commons was originally the chapel of St. Stephen, out of which it was formed chiefly by raising a floor above the pavement, and adding an inner roof, considerably below the ancient one. Upon the destruction of these two interesting edifices, and prior to their re-erection on a scale of appropriate magnificence, preparations were made for the temporary accommodation of the Lords and Commons, by fitting up the library of the old House of Lords. On the west of the Central Hall is "St. Stephen's Hall, built on the site of the chapel of St. Stephen"; communicating, by noble flights of steps, with Westminster Hall.

Additional information:

St Stephen's Royal Chapel or Chapel of St Stephen was initially the King's private chapel at the Palace of Westminster, and stood on the site of what is now St Stephen's Hall. It commenced in 1184 A.D., but came into dis-use by about 1520; and was used as horse stables for Cromwell during the Civil War (1642-1649). It burned down in 1834 but was since rebuilt and remains today, as the Royal Family's privy chapel.

See the St Mary Undercroft article for any possible surviving records for this 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
Westminster St Stephen's Royal Chapel 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 London Metropolitan Archives.

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