Merston, Sussex Genealogy

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

Parish History
MERSTON, a parish, in the union of West Hampnett, hundred of Box and Stockbridge, rape of Chichester, W. division of Sussex, 3 miles (S. E.) from the city of Chichester.

Merston St Giles is an Ancient Parish in the village and civil parish of Merston in the Chichester district of West Sussex The church is closed and the Diocese of Chichester are seeking non-residential occupancy of the building (November 2011) see Merston St Giles

The Sussex Parish Churches history of the church Merston St Giles

The Church of St Giles has been designated as a grade I listed building + Grade I listed buildings in West Sussex and British listed building

Sussex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)Merston and Merston St Giles

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.

From 1837 this parish was in the Westhmpnett registration district From 1935 this became part of Chichester registration district Certificates can be ordered from West Sussex Centralised Certificates Office Registration Service West Sussex Record Office County Hall Chichester PO19 1RN Phone: 01243 642122

Church records
Merston 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 Sussex Record Office and The Keep (which houses the collections of the East Sussex Record Office).

Poor Law Unions
Westhampnett Poor Law Union, Sussex

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Sussex 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
http://genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SSX/Merston/