Fordwich, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Fordwich, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
FORDWICH (St. Mary), a parish, and a member of the town and port of Sandwich, in the union of Bridge, locally in the hundred of Downhamford, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 2 miles (E. by N.) from Canterbury.

Fordwich is a town within the City of Canterbury district, see Fordwich Wikipedia

Fordwich St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish and is a redundant Anglican church, now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, see Fordwich St Mary the Virgin Wikipedia and Churches Conservation Trust.

Fordwich is the smallest place in England with a town council although from 1880 until the 1972 local government reorganisation it lost that status and Mayor and Corporation.

It is the landing place on the River Stour for Caen Stone to be used in the construction of Canterbury Cathedral.

See Kent Archeological Society and Edward Hasted [The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 56-67 at British History Online  and Kent Churches website

The modern parish of Sturry with Fordwich and Westbere with Hersden parish boundary map may be viewed at A church near you See Sturry, Kent

Civil Registration
See Bridge Registration District

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
Fordwich 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.

Kent Online Parish Clerks has indexes available for select parishes. Records are also available at the Kent Archives.

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

Poor Law Unions
Bridge Poor Law Union, Kent

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.

See England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records

Local Family History Centre
Canterbury Family History Centre, Kent

Maidstone Family History Centre, Kent


 * FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.
 * Publication of the restricted access images England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records and England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records means that it is advisable to telephone the centre to reserve a computer if you wish to view these

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