Dover St Mary the Virgin, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Dover St Mary the Virgin, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
DOVOR, or Dover, one of the cinque-ports, a borough and market-town, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, locally in the lathe of St. Augustine, E division of Kent, 15 miles SE by S from Canterbury, and 71 ESE from London. The town formerly consisted of the parishes of St. James the Apostle, St. Mary the Virgin, St. John, St. Martin the Greater, St. Martin the Less, St. Nicholas, and St. Peter; of these, the five last no longer exist, and the churches have been demolished. There are places of worship for General and Particular Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, Unitarians and Roman Catholics.

Dover is a town and civil parish and the administrative centre of Dover district in the County of Kent, see Dover Wikipedia for history and description of the town and port.

Dover St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish and one of the two surviving churches with Dover St James the Apostle, Kent of the original six town parochial churches.

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.

Registration Districts

 * 1837-1896 Dover Registration District

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 - Kent ($)
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Kent ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census

 * Census returns for Dover, 1841-1891
 * Ancestry UK Census Collection ($)
 * Findmypast Census ($)

Poor Law Unions

 * Dover Poor Law Union, Kent
 * England, Kent, Workhouse Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

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


 * England, Kent, Wills and Probate - 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

 * St Mary Dover Kent Churches
 * St Mary's Church Dover A Church Near You
 * The Parish Church of ST Mary the Virgin British Listed Buildings
 * The town and port of Dover British History Online