East Coker, Somerset Genealogy

England Somerset



Parish History
East Coker St Michael is an Ancient parish in Somerset.

COKER, EAST (St. Michael), a parish, in the union of Yeovil, hundred of Houndsborough, Barwick, and Coker, W. division of Somerset, 3 miles (S. W. by W.) from Yeovil; containing, with the hamlet of North Coker, 1334 inhabitants, and comprising by measurement 2081 acres. Nearly one-half of the population is employed in the manufacture of sail-cloth, which is carried on to a great extent; and limestone, and stone for building and for the roads, are quarried. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £12. 6. 3.; patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Exeter; impropriator, W. Helyar, Esq., as lessee under the Dean and Chapter. The rectorial tithes have been commuted for £335, and the vicarial for £267. 10.; the glebe comprises 7 acres, with a glebe-house. The church is a neat cruciform edifice, with a central tower. There is a place of worship for Baptists. The foundations of a Roman building were discovered in a field in 1753; one of the rooms had a beautiful pavement representing persons lying on a couch, beneath which were found a hypocaust, several coffins, burnt bones, &amp;c. There are remains of a religious house, called Nash Abbey, in the parish, supposed to have been an appendage to that of Montacute. Dampier, the celebrated circumnavigator, was born here in 1652.

From: 'Cockington - Colchester', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 654-659. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50888&amp;amp;strquery=east coker Date accessed: 13 March 2011.

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
Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection

Poor Law Unions
Yeovil Poor Law Union, Somerset

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
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 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.