Cockersand Abbey, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Cockersand Abbey, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
COCKERSAND-ABBEY, an extra-parochial liberty, in the union of Lancaster, hundred of Lonsdale south of the Sands, N. division of the county of Lancaster, 7 miles (S. W. by S.) from Lancaster. It was a former abbey near Cockerham in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England. It was founded before 1184 as the Hospital of St Mary on the marsh belonging to Leicester Abbey. It was refounded as a Premonstratensian priory and subsequently elevated to an abbey in 1192. It also continued as a hospital. Since Cokersand Abbey is an extra parochial place it is necessary to search Cockerham, Lancashire Overton, Lancashire records for events.

The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and acquired by a John Kitchen. The site is now adjacent to a farm house and the only significant relic is the still intact, vaulted chapter house which was built in 1230 and used as a family mausoleum by the Daltons of Thurnham Hall during the 18th and 19th centuries. There are some fragmentary remains of the church adjacent.

Two Roman silver statuettes were discovered on Cockersand Moss near the abbey site in 1718, possibly indicating the presence of a Romano-British shrine nearby.

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/

Non-Conformist Churches

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions
Lancaster 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

Websites
Cockersand Abbey on GENUKI