Wells Cathedral St Andrew, Somerset Genealogy

Guide to Wells Cathedral St Andrew, Somerset ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
WELLS, (Cathedral of St Andrew the Apostle), a city, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Wells-Forum, east division of Somerset, 19 miles southwest from Bath, 19 miles south of Bristol; with that part of St. Cuthbert's parish, outside the city's limits.

The city by 1870 was comprised of the in-parish of St. Cuthbert (registers commence from 1609), which surrounds the cathedral precincts, St Thomas Chapel, created and built by 1858 and the three district chapelries of (East) Horrington (registers begin in 1845), Coxley (registers begin in 1845), and Easton (registers begin in 1848).

In the town are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, and Wesleyans.

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
Wells Cathedral St Andrew 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.

Information about the parish may be found on Somerset Online Parish Clerks. Records are also available at the Somerset Archives and Local Studies.

Census records

 * 1526 - Wells City Lay Subsidy, E 179/169/139 . Copy:.

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

Websites
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SOM/Wells/index.html