Minster in Sheppey, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Minster in Sheppey, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Minster St Mary (the Minster Abbey church) is an Ancient parish in Minster in Sheppey.

The church date from the 11th and 12th century with additions in subsequent centuries and restored by Ewan Chrisitian in 1863.

The church is designated a grade I listed building by English Heritage.

Minster is a small town on the Isle of Sheppey in the Swale district of Kent and should not be confused with Minster (Thanet) in the same county see Minster, Kent.

Here is an important jurisdictional perspective by Samuel A. Lewis-- MINSTER-in-Sheppy (St. Mary and St. Sexburgh), a parish, in the union of Sheppy, liberty of the Isle of Sheppy, lathe of Scray, county of Kent; containing the port of Sheerness. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyans; and a Roman Catholic chapel.

Civil Registration
Minster was a sub-district in Sheppey registration district.

Kent County Council

Registration Services Invicta House County Hall Maidstone Kent ME14 1XX Telephone 08458 247 400 http://www.kent.gov.uk are developing online search for all birth marriages and deaths as a result of a community volunteer effort. Not all events are capable of search but the index is updated annually. 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
Minster in Sheppey 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
See Kent Census

Poor Law Unions
Sheppey 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