Rochester St Nicholas with St Clement, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Rochester St Nicholas with St Clement, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Rochester is a town and former city now within the Medway towns unitary authority of Kent. See Rochester Kent Wikipedia

Rochester St Nicholas with St Clement is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Rochester.

St Nicholas' Church has been converted into the Diocesan offices, but remains consecrated.

See Kent Archaeological Society and Edward Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 4 (1798), pp. 153-182. Date accessed: 30 September 2013. at British History Online and Kent Churches website

The former church of St Peter King Street was created from St Nicholas in 1860; the church dated from 1858-1860 and was demolished in 1973/4. St Peter's and Rochester St Margaret, Kent were recombined into a joint parish in 1953 and in 1971 the parish of St Nicholas with St Clement was absorbed into it. The combined parish is now "The Parish of St Peter with St Margaret" centred on the new (1973) Parish Centre in the Delce (St Peter's) with St Margaret's being retained as a Chapel of Ease. Old St Peter's was demolished in 1974

Civil Registration
Medway 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
Rochester St Nicholas with St Clement 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.

Land Tax
Images for Rochester St Nicholas are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments - FamilySearch Historical Records 1780-1831

Census records
Census Returns for Rochester 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
Medway 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