Whitehaven St James, Cumberland Genealogy

England Cumberland  Cumberland Parishes

Parish History
WHITEHAVEN, a sea-port, market-town, newly enfranchised borough, and the head of a union, in the parish of St. Bees, Allerdale ward above Derwent, W. division of Cumberland, 40 miles (S. W.) from Carlisle. Whitehaven contains four chapels: St. James, St. Nicholas, Holy Trinity and Mount Pleasant. There are places of worship for Presbyterians, Particular Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and Roman Catholics.

Church records
Parish Registers begin in 1753

Source: Hay, Daniel. Whitehaven: An Illustrated History. Whitehaven, Cumbria: Michael Moon. Revised and enlarged edition 1979 p. 105-6

The Family History Library has the Bishop's transcripts to St James Chapelry registers from the year 1753 to 1878.

Online Records
Some online transcriptions exist for this chapelry at the following website[s] and ranges of years:

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. Two popular sites are:


 * 1) FreeBMD.
 * 2) Cumberland BMD