East Acton, Middlesex Genealogy

England   Middlesex   Middlesex Parishes

Parish History
St Dunstan East Acton was a district church and in operation by the year 1880, lying within the civil parish boundaries of St Mary's Acton.

"ACTON, a village, a parish and a subdistrict in Brentford, Middlesex. The village stands 8½ miles W of St. Paul's, London; is linked to the metropolis by an almost continuous line of houses, bisected by the Junction railway, connecting the Northwestern railway with the Southwestern; and it has a station on the railway and a post office‡ under London W. The parish contains also the hamlets of East Acton and Steyne. Acres, 2,286. Real property, £18,477. Pop., 3,151. Houses, 610. The property is subdivided. Old Oak Common, traversed by the Great Western railway and by the North and Southwestern junction, was anciently a thick oak forest. Acton Wells, on the common, were in much repute, about the middle of last century, for their medicinal waters. Berrymead Priory was once the seat of the Savilles and the Evelyns. Sir P. Skippon, Richard Baxter, Sir Matthew Hale, Bishop Lloyd, Provost Rous, Thicknesse, the traveller, and Ryres, the anthor of "Mercurius Rusticus," resided in Acton. The living is a rectory in the diocese of London. Value, £968.* Patron, the Bishop of London. The church is early English, and was restored in 1865. There are Independent and Wesleyan chapels, a literary institution, handsome national schools, Wesleyan schools, and well-endowed alms-houses. -The subdistrict comprises four parishes. Acres, 5,963. Pop., 6,443. Houses, 1,044."¹

1. John Marius Wilson, “Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales,” (Edinburgh: A, Fullerton & Co., 1870). Online | here.

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.

Church records
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.

Contributor: Include here information for parish registers, Bishop’s Transcripts, nonconformist and other types of church records, such as parish chest records. Add the contact information for the office holding the original records. Add links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

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

Poor Law Unions
Contributor: Add information about the pertinent poor law unions in the area.

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

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.