Heptonstall, Yorkshire Genealogy

Guide to Heptonstall, Yorkshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
HEPTONSTALL, a chapelry, in the parish of Halifax, union of Todmorden, wapentake of Morley, W. riding of York; consisting of the townships of Erringden, Heptonstall, Langfield, Stansfield, and Wadsworth; and containing 24,345 inhabitants, of whom 4791 are in the township of Heptonstall, 4 miles (N. E.) from Todmorden, and 8¼ (W. by N.) from Halifax.

Heptonstall is an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Yorkshire, created in 1747 from Halifax [St John the Baptist] Ancient Parish.

Other places in the parish include: Wadsworth, Stanfield, Langfield, and Heptonstall with Hebden Bridge.

The graveyard
Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956 and they lived together first in the United States and then England, having two children together: Frieda and Nicholas. Following a long struggle with depression and a marital separation, Plath committed suicide in 1963. Controversy continues to surround the events of her life and death, as well as her writing and legacy.

The grave has the headstone Hughes chose for her. However the grave has been subject to repeated acts of vandalism with objection to the Hughes surname being included and has had to be removed when the word was chiseled off.

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
Heptonstall 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 West Yorkshire Archive Service.

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