Eccleston, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Eccleston, Lancashire family history and genealogy. Parish registers (baptism, christening, marriage, and burial records), civil registration (birth, marriage, and death records), census records, history, wills, cemetery, online transcriptions and indexes, an interactive map and websites.

Here is a List of Chapelries in Eccleston Parish.



Parish History
Eccleston St Mary (near Croston) is an Ancient Parish in the county of Lancashire.

Other places in the parish include: Heskin, Wrightington, and Parbold.

Eccleston is a village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is beside the River Yarrow and was formerly an agricultural and later a weaving settlement. Its name came from the Celtic word "eglēs" meaning a church, and the Old English word "tūn" meaning a farmstead or settlement - i.e. a settlement by a Romano-British church.

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.

"ECCLESTON St Mary, a parish, in the union of Chorley, hundred of Leyland, N. division of the county of Lancaster; comprising the townships of Eccleston, Heskin, Parbold, and Wrightington, 5 miles west of Chorley. There is a second incumbency at Douglas."

Do not confuse (this) Eccleston St Mary's Parish with Eccleston Christ Church, a chapelry only--and a separate place, lying near to and within the parish of Prescot ancient parish.

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the Crown, 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 which is an index to those certificates sent in to the Public Records Office.

Another index to those certificates held at each of the local superintendent registrar offices throughout the county is now online (no cost) at the Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths, or otherwise known as Lancashire BMD. Note that the marriages index provides the names of the parish or chapelry in which a marriage took place.

Church records
Online Records

The parish of St Mary's Eccleston (with parish registers commencing in the year 1603) has much online data which is now accessible to view and not only for its own parish registers but for many of its attached chapelries as well. These parish and chapel registers are now available for the following range of years:

The Family History Library has microfilmed by far the vast majority of Lancashire's original parish and chapelry registers, Bishop's transcripts, including Eccleston's above-mentioned registers. These are available for ordering to and personally searching at any of the over 4,600 FamilySearch Centers available worldwide.

Poor Law Unions
Chorley 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