Birch, Lancashire Genealogy

England Lancashire  Lancashire Parishes

Chapelry History
BIRCH, a district chapelry, in the parish of Manchester, union of Chorlton, hundred of Salford, S. division of the county of Lancaster, 3 miles (S.) from Manchester, on the road to Congleton. The living is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of J. Dickinson, Esq.; net income, £160. The chapel, dedicated to St. James, is supposed to have been originally built by a member of the family of Birch, and was rebuilt in 1846; it is one of the best specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in this neighbourhood, and consists of a nave, chancel, and aisles, with a tower and spire placed at the north-west corner, within the square of the plan. Adjoining is a neat school. Birch Hall, a seat of the Haverseges, passed from them to the Birches; and it is conjectured that the plans laid by James, Earl of Derby, for seizing Manchester for Charles I., were disconcerted by the councils of Col. Birch and his compeers, held here.

From: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis (1848), pp. 248-255. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50801 Date accessed: 25 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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