Kendal, Westmorland Genealogy

Guide to Kendal, Westmorland ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Kendal is an ancient parish, possessing the following townships with chapelries within its boundaries:


 * Burneside
 * Crook
 * Grayrigg
 * Helsington
 * Hugil
 * Kentmere
 * Sleddale
 * Natland
 * New Hutton
 * Old Hutton
 * Selside
 * Stavely
 * Underbarrow
 * Winster

Parish History
KENDAL (Holy Trinity), a newly-enfranchised borough, a market-town, and parish, and the head of a union, chiefly in Kendal ward, but partly in Lonsdale ward, county of Westmorland. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends,Glassites,Independents,Inghamites,Primitive Methodists, Wesleyans, Scottish Seceders, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics. The parish comprises the chapelries of Burneside,Crook, Helsington, Hugil, Old Hutton with Holmescales,Kentmere, Natland, Long Sleddale, Nether and OverStavely, Underbarrow with Bradley-Field, and Winster.

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
Kendal 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 Kendal Archive Centre.

Census records
In December 1787 the Westmorland Court of Quarter Sessions commissioned a population survey of the county. Parish constables were ordered to send in returns listing the names and occupations of the members of every household in their constablewick. This census is found in Vital Statistics, The Westmorland "Census' of 1787. This book is available at the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. The library call number is British Ref. Area 942.88 X2v.

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