Wistaston, Cheshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
WISTASTON (St. Mary), is a parish, in the union and hundred of Nantwich, South division of the county of Chester, 2½ miles NE by E from Nantwich.

Wistaston, Saint Mary is an Ancient Parish in Cheshire.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Wistaston is in the village of Wistaston, Cheshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Nantwich.

The first record of a rector goes back to 1379. The existing records start in 1572. In 1827 the decision was taken that "due to decay it [the church] was unsuitable for public worship". The present church was built in 1827–28 to a design by George Latham.

In the Domesday Survey of 1086, the area was called Wistanestune and was a going concern having a population of 25 to 30 people, valuable woodland and arable land, and deer roaming about. It had been worth 30 shillings, but after William the Conqueror's devastation of Cheshire, it was worth just ten shillings in 1086. It was one of several local villages with the suffix ‘tune’ or ‘ton’ - meaning a ‘farmstead’.

Wistaston is a civil parish and village in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, in north-west England. It is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Crewe town centre and 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Nantwich town centre.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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
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 - Cheshire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Cheshire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1671-1900 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Wistaston, Methodist Chapel. Built in 1945, rebuilt in 1967.

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

 * Nantwich (1837–1937)
 * Crewe (1937–74)
 * Congleton and Crewe (1974–88)
 * South Cheshire (1988–98)
 * Cheshire Central (post 1998)

The post 2009 reorganisation of civil registration can be found online at Cheshire BMD

Poor Law Unions
Nantwich Poor Law Union

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
Wistaston on GENUKI