Croft with Southworth, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Parish History
CROFT, with Southworth (Christ Church), is a parish in the union of Warrington, hundred of West Derby, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 5 miles (N. N. E.) from Warrington; containing 1155 inhabitants. The Croft family held lands in Croft in the reign of Edward III.; Southworth gave name to the knightly family of Southworth, and both manors were possessed by Sir John Southworth in the 39th of Elizabeth. They subsequently passed to other families, and also belonged to the Roman Catholic establishment at Stonyhurst. This is a new parish formed out of the parish of Winwick by act of parliament, in 1845. It comprises 1851 acres, whereof 1288 are meadow and pasture, and the remainder nearly all arable... The population consists partly of handloom weavers. The church, which is in the later English style, with a tower and spire, was [rebuilt] in 1833... There are places of worship for Unitarians and Methodists; and a Roman Catholic chapel. A school is endowed with £6. 10. per annum, and a house and garden.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 725-729. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50905 Date accessed: 29 June 2010.

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
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Census records
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Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Lancashire 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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
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