Kirkham, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Here is A Comprehensive List of Kirkham Parishes and Chapelries.



Parish History
Kirkham St Michael is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the Armounderness deanery of the Diocese of Manchester in the county of Lancashire.

Other places in the parish include: Whittingham, Wharles, Brown Moss, Bryning with Kellamergh, Esprick, Great Plumpton, Greehalgh with Thistleton, Greenalgh with Thistleton, Greenhalgh, Larbreck, Little Eccleston, Little Eccleston with Larbreck, Little Ecclestone with Larbrick, Little Plumpton, Medlar with Wesham, Newsham, Newton with Scales, Roseacre, Roseacre and Wharles, Thistleton, Treals, Treals, Roseacre and Wharles, Westby, Westby with Plumpton, Westby with Plumptons, and Ballam.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

The church is a Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Blackburn, the archdeaconry of Lancaster and the deanery of Kirkham.

The earliest evidence of a church on the site is in 684AD. The fabric of the present church dates from 1822 when the nave, designed by Robert Roper, an architect from Preston, was built. The cost of the nave was £5,000. In 1844 the tower and spire, designed by the Lancaster architect Edmund Sharpe, were added at the west end. In 1853 the chancel was rebuilt, probably by Joseph Hansom, to make the altar visible from the nave. The north and south galleries were removed in the middle of the 20th century and the area under the west gallery has been turned into a separate room. In 2004 it was discovered that the spire had developed structural problems because the iron ties reinforcing the stones had corroded. An appeal to repair the spire was launched and the work is now complete.

KIRKHAM (St. Michael), a market-town and parish, in the union of the Fylde, hundred of Amounderness, N. division of the county of Lancaster; containing 11,604 inhabitants, of whom 2903 are in the town, 9 miles (W. by N.) from Preston, 22 (S. by W.) from Lancaster, and 226 (N. W. by N.) from London. From: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 697-701.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records
Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Census records
http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Poor Law Unions
Fylde Poor Law Union, Lancashire

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

Web sites
Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.