Chester Cathedral Church Precinct, Cheshire Genealogy

Guide to Chester Cathedral Church Precinct, Cheshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy:  parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
CHESTER CATHEDRAL (St Werbugh) church is an ecclesiastical parish, in Great Boughton district, Cheshire; and a diocese in Cheshire and part of Lancashire. The city stands on the River Dee and on the Via Devana, 5 miles SE of the head of the Dee's estuary, and 16 through Birkenhead, SSE of Liverpool.

Ecclesiastical parishes originated in the Medieval period, when the tithe or teind (a proportion of the annual produce or income) was paid by the parish inhabitants to support the Church.

The parishes of St. Bridget (see also St Martin); St. John the Baptist (see also Bought St Paul's), Little St. John, extra-parochial;St. Martin; St. Michael; St. Olave; and St. Peter; part of the parishes of St. Mary on the Hill, St. Oswald, and the Holy Trinity; and the precinct of the Cathedral Close (St Werburgh). The parish of St. Bridget's is a rectory united with that of St Martin's. '''St. Oswald's is a discharged vicarage, joined with the chapelry of Churton-Heath (annexed and which see).  An additional church, dedicated to St. Paul, has been erected at Boughton'''. In New Town, likewise, is a church, dedicated to Christ [Church], built in 1835. There are places of worship for Baptists, the Society of Friends, the Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon, Independents, Welsh and Wesleyan Methodists, New Connexion of Methodists, Sandemanians, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics.

For fuller list of all pre-1875 Chester City parishes serving within the parish boundary, see Church Records below.

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 ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1600s-1910 Cheshire Non-Conformist & Roman Catholic Registers (Marriages) 17th Century-1910 at Findmypast ($); index and images (dates may vary by parish)
 * 1600s-1910 Cheshire Non-Conformist & Roman Catholic Registers (Burials) 17th Century-1910 at Findmypast ($); index and images (dates may vary by parish)


 * 1671-1900 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

There were places of worship for the following Nonconformist denominations:


 * Baptists - by 1847
 * Calvinistic Methodist - 1805
 * Connexion of the Countess of Huntingdon
 * Independents (Congregational) - 1772
 * New Connexion Methodists - 1825 (Primitive Meth.)
 * Presbyterians - 1651
 * Roman Catholics - 1794
 * Sandemanians -
 * Society of Friends
 * Welsh Methodists - 1900
 * Wesleyan Methodists - 1806
 * Unitarians -

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

Poor Law Unions
Chester Poor Law Union Chester

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
Chester Cathedral Church Precinct on GENUKI