Fordham, Norfolk Genealogy

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

Parish History
FORDHAM, a parish, in the union of Downham, hundred of Clackclose, W. division of Norfolk, 2½ miles (S.) from Downham.

Fordham St Mary is an Ancient parish in the Diocese of Norwich.

The Original medieval church tower collapsed into the nave and was rebuilt from the stone to form the present church.

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.


 * Downham 1837-1974

Church records
Fordham 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 Norfolk Record Office.

Poor Law Unions
For more information on the history of the workhouse, see Peter Higginbotham's web site: www.workhouses.org.uk and about Downham: http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Downham/Downham.shtml

Norfolk Poor Law Unions

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Norfolk 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 http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=6005

Websites

 * Fordham on GenUKI
 * Transcription of Kelly's 1908 Directory for Fordham, Norfolk Rootsweb