Prescot, Lancashire Genealogy

Guide to Prescot, Lancashire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records. See "A Comprehensive List of Prescot Parish Chapelries"

Parish History
PRESCOT (St Mary), a market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 8 miles east by northeast of Liverpool. The parish consists of the chapelries of Farnworth, Rainford, St. Helen's, and Great Sankey, and the townships of Bold, Cronton (which had at one time, 31 Nonconformist chapels in the area--mostly Welsh), Cuerdley, Ditton (Hough Green), Eccleston, Parr, Penketh, Prescot, Rainhill, Sutton, Whiston, Widness, and Windle. There are chapels at Eccleston, Farnworth, Parr, Rainford, Rainhill, St. Helen's, Great Sankey, and Sutton. The Unitarians, Primitive Methodists, and Wesleyan Methodists, have places of worship in the town; and at Portico, a mile and a half on the east, is a Roman Catholic chapel, built in 1790, and dedicated to St Nicholas.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
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Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day.
 * See England Civil Registration for online resources and information.

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Chapelry is a church or churches built in a large ecclesiastical parish to help the members attend worship services closer to their homes.

Chapelries of Prescot
Online Parish Records Table

Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Lancashire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Lancashire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * OnLine Parish Clerks - Lancashire - OnLine Parish Clerks project for Lancashire

Non-Conformist Churches (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1647-1996 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Court records
A manor court baron was held here six times a year; and a court leet on the festival of Corpus Christi, when a coroner for the manor and liberty is appointed.

There is a court of requests, for the recovery of debts to any amount, at which the steward of the manor presides; and petty-sessions for the Prescot division of the hundred take place once a month.

Newspapers
Furmsten, Chris. Newspaper Indexes. A four month extraction of names from the Prescot Reporter a weekly newspaper, listing name, date, event, occupation, age, and place. Covers years Nov. 1859-April 1860. In the journal Hel Achau, #20, 1986, pages 9-13. FamilySearch Library Ref. 942.93 D25h

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