Bristol, Gloucestershire Genealogy

England Bristol

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

Parish History
BRISTOL, a city and county of itself, and a considerable port, situated near the mouth of the Bristol Channel, and between the counties of Gloucester and Somerset, into both of which the town extends, 34 miles (S. W. by S.) from Gloucester, 12 (N. W.) from Bath, and 118 (W.) from London; containing, in the old city, 64,266 inhabitants, exclusively of those in Clifton, Bedminster, and the out portions of the parishes of St. James, St. Paul, and St. Philip and St. Jacob, which form the suburbs.

Bristol was created a county borough (a borough or a city independent of county council control). There were a considerable number of parishes and chapels associated and attached to it--some of which did not reside physically-speaking within the city proper, but lay outside of the city, but still within its jurisdictional boundaries. In 1888, it expanded by annexing some parts of south Gloucestershire in 1898 and 1904.

Bristol was included as part of the county of Avon along with Bath and large portions of Gloucestershire and Somerset when Avon was created in 1974. In 1996, the County of Avon was disbanded and split into four parts, namely:

1. The City and County of Bristol

2. South Gloucestershire – formed from the Kingswood and North Avon districts.

3. North Somerset – formed from the Woodspring district.

4. Bath and North East Somerset – formed from the Bath and Wansdyke districts.

Online Histories

 * “The New Guide or Picture of Bristol,” Archive.org, published in 1828
 * Bristol History, Articles and Documents
 * Pictorial Record of Bristol’s History
 * “This History of Bristol, Civil and Ecclesiastical,” a Google eBook, published in 1816
 * “Bristol Past and Present: Volume I—Civil History,” a Google eBook, published in 1881
 * “Bristol Past and Present: Volume III—Civil and Modern History,” a Google eBook, published in 1882
 * “Bristol,” a Google eBook, published in 1889

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.

Neil Dun's FreeBMD Church Cross-reference website helps researchers identify at which churches marriages listed on FreeBMD took place.

Cathedral

 * Bristol Cathedral

Ancient Parishes
• 3

Ecclesiastical Parishes
• 3

Here's a "Comprehensive List of Bristol City Parishes and Episcopal Chapels". Print out this list as a guide to help you more thoroughly search all of these parish (chapel) registers.

Many of Bristol City's parish and chapel registers have been or are being indexed and made searchable online (Church of England Church Records): England, Bristol Parish Registers, 1538-1900 at FamilySearch Historical Collections. Description. Bristol has about 60-plus parishes and chapels within its boundary.

Nonconformists
Catholic
 * Non Conformist Baptisms - Roman Catholic, St Joseph (later St Mary on the Quay) 1835 - 1837 available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Society of Friends
 * Monthly Meeting of Bristol Births (1654-1837) online at Ancestry (£).
 * Monthly Meeting of Bristol Marriages (1659-1837) online at Ancestry (£).
 * Monthly Meeting of Bristol Burials (1655-1837) online at Ancestry (£).


 * England & Wales, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Births 1578-1841, includes Bristol Monthly Meeting, online at findmypast (£).
 * England & Wales, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Marriages 1578-1841, includes Bristol Monthly Meeting, online at findmypast (£).
 * England & Wales, Society Of Friends (Quaker) Burials 1578-1841, includes Bristol Monthly Meeting, online at findmypast (£).


 * Mortimer, Russell. Minute Book of the Men's Meeting of the Society of Friends in Bristol, 1667-1686 (1971) available online at Bristol Record Society website - free. Includes appendix of biographical sketches.
 * Mortimer, Russell. Minute Book of the Men's Meeting of the Society of Friends in Bristol, 1686-1704 (1978) available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.
 * Monthly Meeting of Bristol (1662-1687) online at Ancestry (£).

Census Records
The Inhabitants of Bristol in 1696, by Elizabeth Ralph and Mary E. Williams, 1968, at Bristol and Avon Family History Society website - free.

Emigration

 * Hargreaves-Mawdsley, R. and N. Dermott Harding. Bristol and America, a Record of the First Settlers in the Colonies of North America, 1654-1685: Including the Names with Places of Origin of More than 10,000 Servants to Foreign Plantations Who Sailed from the Port of Bristol to Virginia, Maryland, and Other Parts of the Atlantic Coast, and Also to the West Indies from 1654 to 1685 (London: R.S. Glover, 1931). ; digital version at FamilySearch Books - free.
 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. The Bristol Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, 1654-1686. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1988. ; digital versions at Ancestry (£); Chronicle Barbados (free; Barbados entries only); Virtual Jamestown (free).


 * Bristol and Avon Strays, mainly 18th and 19th centuries, available online at Bristol & Avon Family History Society website - free.

Marriage Licences

 * 1701-1710 - Bristol Marriage Licence Bonds 1701-1710, by Roger Price, 2014, at Bristol and Avon Family History Society website - free.

Occupations

 * Occupations of 18th Century Inhabitants of Bristol, by Ron Lewin, available online at Bristol & Avon Family History Society website - free.
 * Guttridge, George Herbert, ed., The American Correspondence of a Bristol Merchant, 1766-1776: Letters of Richard Champion (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1934).

Apprentices

 * Hollis, D. Calendar of the Bristol Apprentice Book, 1532-1565: Part 1 1532-1542 (1949), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.
 * Ralph, E. and N. Hardwick. Calendar of the Bristol Apprentice Book, 1532-1565: Part 2 1542-1552 (1980), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.
 * Ralph, Elizabeth. Calendar of the Bristol Apprentice Book, 1532-1565: Part 3 1552-1565 (1992), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Burgesses

 * Bristol Burgesses 1525-1557, by Roger Price, available online at Bristol & Avon Family History Society website - free.
 * Missing Bristol Burgesses 1599-1607, by Ron Lewin, available online at Bristol & Avon Family History Society website - free.

Shipping
Middle Ages
 * Carus-Wilson, E.M. The Overseas Trade of Bristol (In the Later Middle Ages) (1937), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Sixteenth Century
 * Vanes, Jean. Documents Illustrating the Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (1979), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Seventeenth Century
 * McGrath, P.W. Records Relating to the Society of Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol in the 17th Century (1952), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Eighteenth Century
 * Richardson, David. Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America, 4 vols. (1986-1996), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Nineteenth Century
 * Farr, Grahame E. Records of Bristol Ships, 1800-1838 (vessels over 150 tons) (1950), available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.

Probate Records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Gloucestershire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Online

 * 1379-1674 - A calendar of wills in the great orphan books, 1379-1674
 * 1542-1650 - George, E., S. George, and P. Fleming. Bristol Probate Inventories Part 1: 1542-1650 (2002) available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.
 * 1546-1603 - Lang, Shelia and Margaret McGregor. Tudor Wills Proved in Bristol 1546-1603 (1993) available online at Bristol Record Society website - free. Will abstracts with every-name index.
 * 1572-1792 -
 * 1657-1689 - George, E., S. George, and R.H. Leech. Bristol Probate Inventories Part 2: 1657-1689 (2005) available online at Bristol Record Society website - free.
 * 1781-1858 - The Bristol Record Office has an online index to wills for 1781-1858

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

Online Maps

 * Bristol in 1885
 * Bristol in 1868
 * Bristol in 1832
 * Know Your Place: Historic Bristol, various historic photos and maps about Bristol

Websites

 * Bristol and Avon Family History Society Downloads
 * Bristol Record Society Publications