Thornton, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Guide to Thornton, Lancashire family history and genealogy: chapelry register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Chapelry History
THORNTON, a township with a chapel of ease, in the parish of Poulton, union of the Fylde, hundred of Amounderness, N. division of Lancashire, 1¾ mile north by east from Poulton; containing, with the town of Fleetwood (which see). A church, dedicated to Christ [Church], was erected in 1835.

Historically part of Lancashire. During the compilation of the Domesday Book in 1086, the settlement of Torentún is recorded, along with the settlement of Homer Green, which far outdates any claim that Ince Blundell is the oldest village in Sefton. Thornton was combined with Crosby Village and Blundellsands to form the Great Crosby urban district. The district subsequently became part the municipal borough of Crosby in 1937. This in turn was absorbed into the new Metropolitan Borough of Sefton on 1 April 1974. Thornton still however retains Parish Council status and therefore has a historical boundary.

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Online Records
 Church of England 

Thornton chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Poulton le Fylde to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Thornton and comprising the whole ancient parish of Poulton le Fylde to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the POULTON LE FYLDE PARISH page.

Poor Law Unions
West Derby, Lancashire Poor Law Union

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