Dewsbury, Yorkshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
DEWSBURY (All Saints), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, partly in the wapentake of Morley, but chiefly in the Lower division of that of Agbrigg, W. riding of York; comprising the townships of Dewsbury, Ossett with Gawthorpe, and Soothill, and the chapelry of Hartshead with Clifton; the whole containing 23,806 inhabitants, of whom 10,600 are in the township of Dewsbury, 34 miles (S. W.) from York, and 188 (N. N. W.) from London. In the town are places of worship for the Society of Friends, Independents, Primitive Methodists, Methodists of the New Connexion, and Wesleyans.

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes. For historical information, see these sources:


 * the GENUKI page for Dewsbury.
 * the entry for Dewsbury from Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of England (1848) found at 'British History Online.'
 * the entry for Dewsbury from Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) found at 'Vision of Britain.'

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
Dewsbury All Saints, Yorkshire parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Dewsbury Moor St John registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

List of Chapelry's in this Parish

 * Earls Heaton

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Warrington-Padgate Christ Church and comprising the whole ancient parish of Dewsbury to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the DEWSBURY PARISH  page.

Dewsbury is an 'ancient' parish (created before 1813) in the diocese of Wakefield. Church of England records for Dewsbury All Saints survive from 1538. Other pre-1837 Church of England (Anglican) churches in Dewsbury parish include:


 * St. Peter's Hartshead (with records from 1612)
 * Holy Trinity Ossett (from 1792)
 * St. Paul's Hanging-Heaton (from 1825)
 * St. John the Evangelist Dewsbury-Moor (from 1827)
 * St. Peter's Earls-Heaton (from 1827)

The original registers are deposited at the West Yorkshire Archives in Wakefield. Microfilm/fiche copies are available at archive branches such as Leeds at Sheepscar and Kirklees in Huddersfield.

The copies made by the minister (ordered by an Act of 1598) and sent each year to the Bishop of the diocese (known as parish register transcripts or Bishop's transcripts) survive from 1600 and are deposited at the West Yorkshire Archives branch in Sheepscar, Leeds.

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has both parish registers and bishop's transcripts on microfilm for Dewsbury and its chapelries, which are listed in the. Many of these records are indexed in the International Genealogical Index available online through the 'Advanced Search' at www.familysearch.org.

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images

Cemeteries
Transcripts of monumental inscriptions for Dewsbury may be found at the West Yorkshire Archives, Kirklees Branch, at the Central Library, Huddersfield.

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has a number of transcripts of monumental inscriptions for, which are available on microfilm through family history centers.

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