Old Sarum, Wiltshire Genealogy

Guide to Old Sarum, Wiltshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
SARUM, OLD, formerly a representative borough, in the parish of Stratford-under-the-Castle, union of Alderbury. It is located in the hundred of Underditch and in the county of Wilts (Wiltshire), 1½ mile (N.) from Salisbury.

The city stood on a lofty eminence, on the S border of Salisbury plain it is nearly midway between the rivers Avon and Bourn. It is on the Lcknield-street, at the convergence of Roman roads from Winchester, Silchester, Speen, the Severn, and Dorchester. The location occupies the site of the Roman station, Sorbiodunum.

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
Old Sarum parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Information about the parish may be found on Wiltshire Online Parish Clerks. Records are also available at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre.

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Wiltshire 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