Mirfield, Yorkshire Genealogy

Guide to Mirfield, Yorkshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
MIRFIELD (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Dewsbury, Lower division of the wapentake of Agbrigg, W. riding of York, 2¾ miles (W. by S.) from Dewsbury. There are places of worship for Wesleyan Methodists of the Old and New Connexions, Primitive Methodists, Baptists, Independents, Moravians,and Swedenborgians.

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
Online data content from chapelry registers of Mirfield exists at some of the following websites and for the specified ranges of years:

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

Mirfield is an 'ancient' parish (created before 1813) in the diocese of Wakefield. Church of England records for Mirfield St. Mary's survive from 1559.;

The original registers are deposited at the West Yorkshire Archives in Wakefield. Microfilm/fiche copies are available at archive branches such as Leeds at Sheepscar and Kirklees in Huddersfield.

The copies made by the minister (ordered by an Act of 1598) and sent each year to the Bishop of the diocese (known as parish register transcripts or Bishop's transcripts) survive from 1600 and are deposited at the West Yorkshire Archives branch in Sheepscar, Leeds.

The Family History Library in Salt Lake City has both parish registers and bishop's transcripts on microfilm for Mirfield and its chapelries, which are listed in the. Many of these records are indexed in the International Genealogical Index available online through the 'Advanced Search' at www.familysearch.org.

Monumental Inscriptions
For a transcription of all monumental inscriptions in the Mirfield parish church cemetery, see https://kirkheaton.info/. You must register on the site (free) to access the transcriptions. The transcriptions were compiled in 2015 and were added to a transcription made in 1884. A map of the cemetery is included. Monumental inscriptions generally give more family connections and information than the parish register burial records. The Mirfield burial records give very limited information prior to 1813. These monumental inscriptions go back into the late 1600's.

Probate Records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Yorkshire Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Transcriptions of the wills and administrations of 47 residents of Mirfield, dating from 1521 to 1854, are found on the website https://kirkheaton.info/. You must register on the site (free) to access the transcripts.

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