Bures St. Mary, Suffolk Genealogy

Guide to Bures St Mary, Suffolk ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
BURES (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Sudbury, hundred of Babergh, W. division of Suffolk, 5 miles (S. E. by S.) from Sudbury. Bures St. Mary is the parish spanning the river Stour. That part of the parish that is in Essex is called Bures Hamlet and the part that is in Suffolk is called Bures St. Mary.

Resources
If you live in Suffolk you will have access to a variety of resources at local archives and libraries. For those who live further afield, one can access microfilm and online records at Family History Centres. Refer to Suffolk_in_the_FHL_Catalog and in the FamilySearch Catalogue for available records.

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
Bures St. Mary 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 Suffolk Record Office.

Census records
Census records from 1841-1891 are available on film through a Family History Center or at the Family History Library. The first film number is474633. To view these census images online, they are available through a number of websites for a fee or free.

■findmypast (fee-based) but free at Family History Centers and the Family History Library and various other libraries. ■Ancestry.co.uk(fee-based) but free at Family History Centers and the Family History Library and various other libraries. The library versions are known as AncestryInstitution.com. ■The Genealogist.co.uk(fee-based) but free at Family History Centers and the Family History Library and various other libraries. ■FreeCen is a free based UK census searches. It is not complete and individuals are always asked to consider helping out with transcriptions.

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