Dudley Nonconformists, Worcestershire Genealogy

Guide to Dudley Nonconformists, Worcestershire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
DUDLEY, a borough, and the head of a union, in the Lower division of the hundred of Halfshire, Dudley and E. divisions of the county of Worcester, though locally in the S. division of the hundred of Offlow and of the county of Stafford, 26 miles (N. N. E.) from Worcester, and 118 (N. W. by N.) from London. There are places of worship for Primitive, Kilhamite, and Wesleyan Methodists, for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians.

Additional information:

Dudley is a detached part of Worcestershire which extends into part of Staffordshire. Ecclesiastically within the diocese of Worcester and the Kidderminster deanery it is historically referred to in some records as part of Staffordshire.

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
Dudley Nonconformists 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 The Hive (where the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service is located).

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