Upchurch, Kent Genealogy

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

Parish History
UPCHURCH (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and hundred of Milton, Upper division of the lathe of Scray, E division of Kent, 5½ miles E by S from Chatham.

Upchurch is a village and civil parish within the Swale district of Kent, see Upchurch Wikipedia

Upchurch St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Canterbury; a map of the parish boundary is available at A church near you

The Parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Horsham Lane, Upchurch has been designated as a grade I listed building British listed building

See Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 6 (1798), pp. 24-34. Date accessed: 25 November 2013. at British History Online and Kent Churches website

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

Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

Land Tax

 * Images for Upchurch available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1832.


 * Images for Borough of Road are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1831.

Examination of the original record at the Centre for Kentish Studies (March 2012) confirms that the Gore Farm referred to in the images is that referred to by Edward Hasted and the Borough of Road "Division of Upper Scray" relates to Upchurch parish.

Census records
Census returns for Upchurch 1841-1891

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.

Poor Law Unions

 * Milton 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.

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