Brightling, Sussex Genealogy

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

Parish History
BRIGHTLING (St. Thomas à Becket), a parish, in the union of Battle, partly in the hundred of Henhurst, but chiefly in that of Netherfield, rape of Hastings, E. division of Sussex, 4 miles (N. W.) from Battle.

Brightling St Thomas a Becket is an Ancient Parish in East Sussex.

Church history Brightling St Thomas a Becket

The Parish Church of St Thomas a Becket has been designated as a grade I listed building British listed building

See Brightling Sussex Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

The graveyard contains the 25 feet high pyramid tomb of local landowner John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, (1757–1834) MP for Sussex whose eccentric folly building even caused the local pub to be removed to allow for his pyramid. See also Brightling Wikipedia



The mausoleum pyramid has been designated a Grade II* listed mausoleum British listed monument

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.

This parish was part of Battle Registration District from 1837.

Certificates may be obtained from

East Sussex County Council

The Register Office Town Hall Grove Road Eastbourne BN21 4UG

Phone: 01323 464780

Fax: 01323 431386

Email:eastbourne.registrar@eastsussex.gov.uk

Church records
Brightling 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 West Sussex Record Office and The Keep (which houses the collections of the East Sussex Record Office).

Poor Law Unions
Battle Poor Law Union, Sussex

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