Colwall, Herefordshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
COLWALL (St. James), is a parish, in the union of Ledbury, hundred of Radlow, county of Hereford, 3½ miles (N. E. by N.) from Ledbury.

Colwall is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire. Colwall Wikipedia

Colwall St James the Great is an Ancient Parish in Herefordshire which includes North Hill, Colwall Stone, Upper Colwall and Colwall Green.

Part of the parish boundary forms part of the county boundary with neighbours Mathon, Worcestershire Mathon St James Malverns Wells Welland, Worcestershire and Little Malvern, Worcestershire

The Church of St James, Mill Lane Colwall has been designated as a grade II* listed building British listed building and is distant from the settlement.

See also Herefordshire Churches

The Church of the Good Shepherd Colwall which dates from 1909-1910 has been designated as a grade II listed building British listed building and was formed from part of the Ancient parish.

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
Colwall 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.

The Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre houses many parish registers. See The records we hold for a list of records available there. How to contact them:
 * Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre Fir Tree Lane Rotherwas Hereford HR2 6LA Telephone: +44 (0)1432 260750 Email: [mailto:archives@herefordshire.gov.uk archives@herefordshire.gov.uk] Website: Herefordshire Archive and Records Centre

Census records
FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through theFHC Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

Category:England Family History Centres to locate local Family History Centres in UK

Introduction to Family History Centers to locate outside UK.

Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.Find my Past 1911 census

Poor Law Unions
Ledbury Poor Law Union, Herefordshire

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

Websites
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/HEF/Colwall/index.html

Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.