Warburton, Cheshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
WARBURTON (St. Werburgh), is a parish, in the union of Altrincham, hundred of Bucklow, North division of the county of Chester, 6½ miles E by N from Warrington. The Rivers Mersey and Bollin run through the parish.

St Werburgh's Church, Warburton is the name of two separate churches in the village of Warburton, Greater Manchester, England. The older church is located to the west of the village and may date back as far as the middle of the 13th century. It is now a redundant church but services are held in the summer months. Pevsner calls this church "a lovable muddle".

The newer church was built in 1883–85 and is located to the southeast of the village and is an Ancient Parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Bowdon. Its benefice is combined with that of St Peter, Oughtrington. It includes the hamlet of Moss Brow.

The dedication is an unusual one, ordinarily local to Chester, where Werburgh is the patron saint. Werburgh, an Anglo-Saxon saint who has given her name to Warburgtune, as Warburton was called in the Domesday survey (1086), was the daughter of Wulfhere, the first Christian king of Mercia.

There is evidence of a Saxon church on the site before the Norman Conquest. In 1187–90 Adam de Dutton founded a priory on the site for Norbertine canons. It is likely that the building of the present church began in the middle of the 13th century. By 1880 the church needed major repairs, and because of this the new church was built and the old church ceased to be the parish church.

In 1933 the boundary with Lancashire was adjusted to follow the course of the Manchester Ship Canal; since 1974 Warburton has been part of Greater Manchester.

Church records
Warburton 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 Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.

Non-Conformist Churches

 * Methodist

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from 1 July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. Here are two excellent Internet sites with birth, marriage and death indexes available:
 * FreeBMD
 * Cheshire BMD

Registration Districts

 * Altrincham (1837–98)
 * Bucklow (1898–1974)
 * Trafford (post 1974)

Poor Law Unions

 * Altrincham (1836–95)
 * Bucklow (1895–1930)
 * Altrincham (renamed Bucklow) Poor Law Union, Cheshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Cheshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

See also England Cheshire Probate Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

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

Websites
Warburton on GENUKI