Bidston, Cheshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
BIDSTON or BIDSTONE, is a parish, in the union, and Lower division of the hundred of Wirrall, S. division of the county of Chester; comprising the townships of Bidstone with Ford, Moreton with Lingham, and Saughal l Massey ; is 4 miles (W. by N.) from Birkenhead. The church is of the date 1547.

Bidston St Oswald Bidston cum Ford was a township in Bidston Parish, Wirral Hundred and included Bidston Moss and Ford.— See Mortincer’s History of the Hundred of Wirral.

The original church dates back to the 13th century. The tower was built in 1520. The rest of the church was rebuilt in 1855–56 by W. &amp; J. Hay in Gothic Revival style. An extension was made to the chancel in 1882 by G. E. Grayson.

Church Records
Bidston 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.

Records are also available at the Cheshire Archives and Local Studies.

Non-Conformist Churches

 * Roman Catholic
 * Society of Friends/Quaker
 * Wesleyan Methodist

Non-Conformists Church records from Family History Library:

Church records for the Palm Grove Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, Claughton-cum-Grange 1875-1955: Marriages, 1875-1955. Film 2299418 Items 16 - 22

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from 1 July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. Here are two excellent Internet sites with birth, marriage and death indexes available:


 * FreeBMD
 * Cheshire BMD

Registration Districts

 * Wirral (1837-1861)
 * Birkenhead (1861-1933)

Poor Law Unions
Wirral Poor Law Union, Cheshire

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

See also England Cheshire Probate Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

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
Bidston on GENUKI