Macclesfield, St Peter, Cheshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
Macclesfield, is a market-town, parochial chapelry, and newly-enfranchised borough, having a separate jurisdiction, it is locally in the parish of Prestbury, and hundred of Macclesfield, and the head of a union, in the Northern division of the county of Chester. The town is pleasantly situated near the southern extremity of the forest.

The parochial chapelry consists of the nine townships of Hurdsfield, Kettleshulme , Macclesfield , Macclesfield Forest , Pott-Shrigley , Rainow , Sutton , Wildboarclough , and Wincle. The parochial chapel, dedicated to St. Michael, and is dependent on the mother church at Prestbury.

Christchurch, was erected in 1775, at the expense of Charles Roe.

St. George's church, in Sutton, was erected as a dissenters' place of worship, the same township contains a church dedicated to St. James. In the year 1844, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners endowed two church districts St. Paul's and St. Peter's, Macclesfield, and the districts then became ecclesiastical parishes. There are places of worship for the Society of Friends, Independents, Primitive Methodists, Socinians, and Roman Catholics.

Church records
Macclesfield, St Peter chapelry registers of christenings, marriages and burials have been indexed by the following groups:

To find the names of the neighbouring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Here is a list of parish registers on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Parish registers for St. Peter's Church, Macclesfield, 1846-1947 Cheshire Record Office call no.: P187/1/1-3, P187/2/1-5, P187/3/1-2.

Bishop's transcripts for St. Peter's Church, Macclesfield, 1874-1876 Cheshire Record Office: EDB 139

Non-Conformist Churches

 * 1600s-1910 Cheshire Non-Conformist & Roman Catholic Registers (Baptism) 17th Century-1910 at FindMyPast ($); index and images (dates may vary by parish)
 * 1600s-1910 Cheshire Non-Conformist & Roman Catholic Registers (Marriages) 17th Century-1910 at FindMyPast ($); index and images (dates may vary by parish)
 * Society of Friends
 * Independents
 * Primitive Methodists
 * Socinians
 * Roman Catholics

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

 * Macclesfield (1837-1998)

Poor Law Unions

 * Macclesfield

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.

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
Macclesfield St Peter on GENUKI

Macclesfield on GENUKI