Dorchester All Saints, Dorset Genealogy

Guide to Dorchester All Saints, Dorset ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Dorchester (All Saints) capital of county, municipal borough, and market town, Dorset, on river Frome, 8 miles N. of Weymouth and 138 miles SW. of London by rail. The town is divided into three parishes. All Saints', is commonly called All Hallows. This church began as early as 1653. .

Dorchester.-- capital of county, municipal borough, and market town, Dorset, on river Frome, 8 miles N. of Weymouth and 138 miles SW. of London by rail, 635 ac., pop. 7567; P.O., T.O., 4 Banks, 3 newspapers. Market-days, Wednesday and Saturday. D. was the Durnovaria of the Romans, and the Dorn Ceastre of the West Saxons. Portions of the Roman wall still remain; also, the ruins of a large amphitheatre, the most perfect of its kind in England. There are some breweries, but the trade is mainly agricultural. A little to the W. of the town are large cavalry and infantry barracks. The bor. returned 1 member until 1885. .

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
Dorchester All Saints 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.

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