Blackheath St John, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Blackheath St John, Kent, England ancestry, family history, and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.



Parish History
BLACKHEATH, a hamlet, five chapelries, and a hundred in Kent. The hamlet is in the parishes of Greenwich, Lewisham, Lee, and Charlton; lies on Watling-street and on the North Kent railway, adjacent to Greenwich Park, 6 miles ESE of London Bridge; and has a station on the railway, and a post office‡ under Greenwich, London, SE. Two houses, called the Bastile and the Minced-Pie-House, built by Sir John Vanbrugh, are on Maze hill. Morden college, founded in 1695 by Sir John Morden, for decayed merchants, a brick quadrangle amid considerable grounds, and now supporting upwards of 70 inmates, is on the S side. A grammar school, founded and endowed in 1652 by the Rev. Abraham Colfe, is within Lewisham. The five chapelries [of the Church of England] are St. John, All Saints, Blackheath-Park, St. Germans, and Dartmouth; the last annexed to Lewisham vicarage, the others, separate charges. Value of All Saints, £300; of the others, not reported. Patron of St. John, W. Angerstein, Esq.; of All Saints, the Vicar of Lewisham; of Blackheath-Park, J. Cator, Esq. There are chapels for Independents and Wesleyans, a large proprietory school, and a natural history society. The hundred is in the lathe of Sutton-at-Hone; and contains the parishes of Lee, Lewisham, Charlton, and Eltham. Acres, 18,206. Pop. in 1851, 121,753; in 1861, 187,696. Houses, 26,559.

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
Blackheath All Saints parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Census Records
Contributor: Include an overview if there is any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed. Add a link to online sites for indexes and/or images. Also add a link to the FamilySearch Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection.

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.Find my Past 1911 census search

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