East Smithfield Liberty, Middlesex Genealogy

Guide to East Smithfield Liberty, Middlesex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: Parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
East Smithfield Liberty, otherwise called St Botolph Without Aldgate, was known and called by that name. It lay partly within the City of London and partly in the county of Middlesex.

"East Smithfield is the area in front of the Royal Mint, and the St Katherine Dock's Office, and the street and avenues on the northern sides of those docks. Although it is now a close and confined neighbourhood, it was in the reign of Henry III an open field, on which was held an annual fair for fifteen days at Whitsuntide, from the Eve of Pentecost to the Octaves of trinity. In the Library of East Smithfield a court-leet and court-baron are held, wherein pleas to the amount of forty shillings are held, nuisances presented, and other similar judicial acts."

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
East Smithfield Liberty 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 London Metropolitan Archives.

1547 Subsidy

 * East Smithfield, Portsoken Ward, London (The National Archives, Ref: E179/145/148), Copy:.

1600 Subsidy

 * 1600 - Lay Subsidy Returns for London, Middlesex, Surrey (north) 1593-1600: Eastesmithefield and Eastesmythefeilde adhuc (TNA E179/142/234) at Alan H. Nelson website - free

1620 Subsidy

 * Ossulstone Hundred, Tower Division: The Tower Hamlets and Whitechapel, East Smithfield (The National Archives, Ref: E179/142/254); transcript by Charles Edward Banks:.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Middlesex 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
East Smithfield Liberty in St Botolph Without Aldgate on GENUKI