Axminster, Devon Genealogy

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

Parish History
AXMINSTER, a town, a subdistrict, a hundred, and a district, in Devon; and a parish partly also in Dorset. The town stands on a rising ground, adjacent to the river Axe, above the influx of the Yarty, and contiguous to the Yeovil and Exeter railway, 25 miles E by N of Exeter. There are chapels for independents, Wesleyans and Roman Catholics. The parish includes the tythings of Abbey, Shapwick, Smallridge, Trill, Uphay, West Water, Weycroft, and Wyke or Week, in Devon.

Civil Registration
Births, 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
Axminster 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 Devon Archives and Local Studies.

Non-Conformist Churches

 * Independent/Congregational
 * Methodist
 * Roman Catholic
 * Society of Friends/Quaker
 * Wesleyan Methodist

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Devon 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
There are many maps and gazetteers showing English places. Valuable web sites are:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Axminster on GENUKI