Downton, Herefordshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
DOWNTON (St. Giles), a parish, in the union of Ludlow, hundred of Wigmore, and county of Hereford, 3 miles (E. by S.) from Leintwardine.

Downton is an Ancient Parish in Herefordshire.

Downton St Giles was built in 1861-1862 by S Pountney Smith and is an Estate church to the Downton estate, Downton Castle is nearby Downton Castle Wikipedia

The church has been designated as a grade II listed building by English Heritage British Listed Building

In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Downton like this:

DOWNTON, a parish in the district of Ludlow and county of Hereford; on the river Teme, near the boundary with Salop, 5 miles SW of Bromfield r. station, and 5½ W by S of Ludlow.

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

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
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
 * 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)

Census Records
See Herefordshire Census

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 the FHC Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.

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
Downton

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