Norwich St Benedict, Norfolk Genealogy

Guide to Norwich St Benedict, Norfolk ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Norwich St Benedict was one of the four mediaevalparish churches on St Benedict Street in the city. All of them are redundant now; St Laurence is one of Norwich's biggest, St Gregory probably its most interesting, St Margaret is used for exhibitions and St Swithin is the excellent Norwich Arts Centre. But it is the most westerly, St Benedict, which gives the street its name.

It once gave its name to a gate in the city walls, the remains of these are still visible at the end of St Benedict's street.

The church was destroyed one night in January 1942 as part of the German Baedecker bombing raid upon the city. The area beyond the street to the west was carpet-bombed by German planes, and the parish was almost entirely destroyed. All that remained of St Benedict was the shell of the aisle and the ancient round tower, standing tall and defiant. The ruined walls were removed in the 1950's and the tower alone hints at the presence of the church in an open grassed space between surrounding buildings. St Benedict Street is a busy restauarant and bare quarter of modern Norwich.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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.
 * Norfolk Record Office

Registration Districts

 * Norwich
 * registration events post 1837 may be searched online at Free BMD

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Norfolk ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Norfolk ($)
 * Norfolk Transcription Archive
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * Tinstaafl Baptism Project 1813 to 1880

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * 1613-1901 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index (dates may vary by parish)

Poor Law Unions

 * England Norfolk Poor Law Union Records - FamilySearch Historical Records
 * Norfolk Poor Law Unions
 * Norwich Poor Law Union

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

 * Churches of Norfolk
 * George Plunkett photos for historic photographs of the church