Sonning, Oxfordshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
SONNING (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of Wokingham, partly in the hundred of Binfield, county of Oxford, but chiefly in the hundreds of Charlton and Sonning, county of Berks, 3½ miles (E.N.E.) from Reading. Here is a place of worship for Independents.

Sonning is an Ancient Parish partly in Berkshire and partly in Oxfordshire. Other places in the parish include: Sandford, Woodley and Sandford, Woodley, and Sonning Town. A more detailed description is available in Genuki.org.uk.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Online Records These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Oxfordshire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Oxfordshire ($)
 * Oxfordshire Family History Society
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census records
Census records from 1841-1891 are available on film through a Family History Center or at the FamilySearch Library. The first film number is 241205. (Note these records are listed under Berkshire County as the parish is mostly in Berkshire. To view these census images online, they are available through a number of websites for a fee or free.


 * findmypast - fee-based, but free at FamilySearch Centers and the FamilySearch Library and various other libraries.
 * Ancestry.co.uk - fee-based, but free at FamilySearch Centers and the FamilySearch Library and various other libraries. The library versions are known as AncestryInstitution.com.
 * The Genealogist.co.uk - fee-based, but free at FamilySearch Centers and the FamilySearch Library and various other libraries.
 * FreeCen is a free UK census search. It is not complete and individuals are always asked to consider helping out with transcriptions.

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

Websites
Oxfordshire Family History Society