Canterbury St Martin, Kent Genealogy

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

Parish History
Canterbury St Martin is an Ancient Parish in the city see St Martin's Church Canterbury Wikipedia and reputedly the oldest Parish Church in England.

The church of St Martin has been designated as a grade I listed building British listed building

A detailed history of the church is found at Kent Archaeological Society

On 6 March 1681 the parish of St Martin united with Canterbury St Paul, Kent

The church is referred to in Edward Hasted, 'Canterbury: The churches within the city and suburbs', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 11 (1800), pp. 209-288. at British History Online

Civil Registration
See Canterbury Registration district

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

The deposited records of St Martin of Tours at Canterbury Cathedral Archives are summarised at the Kent Family History Society website.

Census Records
Family Search microfilm for Census Returns for the city are at Census returns for Canterbury, 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

 * Canterbury 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