Ambleside, Westmorland Genealogy

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

Parish History
AMBLESIDE, a market-town and parochial chapelry, partly in the parish of Windermere, but chiefly in that of Grasmere, Kendal ward and union, county of Westmorland, 25 miles (W. S. W.) from Appleby. The river Rothay flows in the vicinity, and at the upper extremity of the town is a beautiful waterfall called Stockgill Force.

The powers of the county debt-court of Ambleside, established in 1847, extend over the sub-registration-districts of Ambleside and Hawkshead. The chapel, situated in that part of the town which is in the parish of Grasmere, was made parochial by the Bishop of Chester in 1675, and was rebuilt in 1812; it is a plain edifice. The Independents have a place of worship.

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
Ambleside 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.

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