Ellerburne, Yorkshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
ELLERBURN (St. Hilda), a parish, in Pickering lythe and union, N. riding of York, 3¼ miles (E. by N.) from Pickering; containing, with the township of Farmanby and chapelry of Wilton, 686 inhabitants. At Wilton is a chapel of ease; and at Farmanby a place of worship for Wesleyans.

Ellerburne is a chapelry of Pickering, Yorkshire Ancient Parish in Yorkshire.Other places in the parish include: Farmanby, Thortondale, Farnaby and Ellerburn, and Farnaby. The church of ST. HILDA is a small building consisting of chancel 19 ft. by 12 ft. 8 in., with north vestry, nave 30 ft. 6 in. by 17 ft. 3 in., with western bellcote and south porch. The measurements are all internal.

The fabric of the church is apparently of early Norman date, but the unusual height of the nave walls may be indicative of a pre-Conquest origin. Little alteration appears to have been made to the building till the 15th century except the insertion of a 13th-century lancet in the south chancel wall and the reconstruction of the chancel arch. At the later date, however, buttresses were added where necessary, a chapel was built out south of the nave, and several windows inserted. Early in the 19th century the existing bellcote was erected and the south porch, north vestry and organ chamber are recent additions.

The chancel has a three-light 15th-century east window, and in the north wall is an ancient door leading to the modern vestry. The first window in the south wall is a 13th-century lancet cutting into an early Norman blocked window, of which the arch can be traced rather further to the west. At the west end of the same wall is a two-light square-headed 15th-century window, and east of it is a blocked priest's door with a segmental external head. In the south wall is a rough square-headed piscina and an aumbry. The chancel arch is of 13th-century date, but the responds are early Norman or perhaps pre-Conquest. They are square on plan and have each an attached shaft on the western angle with rude cushion capitals and bases. The former are ornamented with the volute or spiral pattern found also at St. Mary, Whitby, and on the font at Sneaton, and possibly inspired by St. Hilda's serpents. The imposts have rough carving of the same period, now much defaced. The chancel roof is mainly modern, but some of the old timbers remain.

The nave has a modern three-light window in the north wall and the blocked north door has the appearance of very early work. At the east end of the south wall are traces of an arch of 14th or 15thcentury date, opening into a chapel which has now entirely gone. Immediately above this arch are remains of the head of the original Norman window. The south porch is a modern gabled stone structure, and high up in the south wall two plain square-headed two-light windows, also of modern date, have been inserted. The ugly square stone bellcote at the west end containing one bell rests on two buttresses against the wall and was built in the early 19th century. The nave roof is entirely modern. The walls are built of fairly large rubble, wide jointed and roughly coursed.

The font is a rough circular bowl, probably of the 12th century, on a modern base. Of the woodwork the Jacobean pulpit is octagonal with a sounding board having an inlaid soffit, and the nave pews are Jacobean and similar to those at Sinnington but much repaired. Built into the walls of the church are several fragments of pre-Conquest sculpture, including a mutilated cross head with knotwork, another plain and also mutilated, and two 'hog-backs,' all in the porch; a little stone with two human demi-figures, a cross head and part of a shaft with a bound serpent in the south nave wall, and other fragments.

The plate consists of a cup (Newcastle, 1755) inscribed 'Ellerburne 1756,' a paten presented in 1888 and a pewter flagon and plate.

The registers are as follows: (i) baptisms and burials 1691 to 1770, marriages to 1754 only; (ii) marriages 1754 to 1813; (iii) baptisms and burials 1771 to 1812.

The church (dedication unknown) at WILTON was completely rebuilt in 1911, the south arcade being ancient work re-used. The old church was a barn-like structure consisting of a chancel about 16 ft. 3 in. long and nave 42 ft. 8 in. by 17 ft. The destruction of this building revealed the existence of a 13th-century arcade in the south nave wall, and excavation on the north side showed that an aisle had formerly existed there also, giving a total width to the nave of 32 ft. 8 in. The chancel was quite a featureless building, apparently of late date, with square-headed 17th or 18th-century windows and roofed with slate.

The nave appeared equally uninteresting, having a three-light square-headed 17th-century window in the south wall with a small single-light opening further west and a flat-pointed south door probably of the 17th century. In a recess in the wall hung two bells. The nave roof was tiled. The arcade discovered in the south wall was four bays long with two circular and one octagonal pier and a half-round eastern respond. The piers had molded bell capitals and bases of the 13th century. No trace was discovered of the arcade on the north side, which was probably destroyed in medieval times.

The plate consists of a mid-17th-century cup with the mark of John Thompson of York, 1635, modern paten and a pewter flagon and two plates of the same material.

'Parishes: Ellerburn', A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 (1923), pp. 437-440. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=64689 Date accessed: 07 May 2011.

Civil Registration
Records from the Ryedale registration district held at the North Yorkshire Registration Service are included in the online index available at Yorkshire BMD for post 1837 events; view the coverage table to check progress on the availability of index search.

Marriages include


 * Church of England marriages.
 * Civil Marriages at register offices, or non-conformist churches where a registrar was required to be present at the ceremony.
 * Authorised Person marriages. These cover the non-conformist places of worship which applied to keep their own registers as a result of the Marriage Act, 1898 (bringing them into line with Jewish and Quaker marriages which had this status since 1837). In such cases an 'Authorised Person' (usually the minister or priest) recorded the ceremony instead of the registrar. Earlier weddings in these places would be included with civil marriage registers.

A secondary index of 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 however this secondary index may omit the event and may not contain the detail of the Yorkshire BMD index

Church Records
Ellerburne 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 North Yorkshire County Record Office.

Poor Law Unions
Pickering Poor Law Union, Yorkshire

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