Lancashire Church Records

Introduction
Before 1837 church records are the main source for genealogical research in Lancashire. They typically record baptisms, marriages and burials. After 1837 they were superseded by Civil Registration. However they remain useful post-1837 for determining which religions your ancestors belonged to and due to the costs for accessing civil registration records.

Church of England


Lancashire was comprised of at least 75 ancient parishes, but well over 400 extant chapels (chapelries) and district churches prior to 1851. It is very important to note that each parish had many chapels with their own registers. On average each parish had 8, but Manchester had about 160!

To view Lancashire's parishes and/or chapelries, click on the links below for the desired parish or chapelry.


 * 1) The Parishes(A-Z)
 * 2) The Chapelries(A-Z)

Online records

 * FamilySearch - millions of parish records and cemetery records from Lancashire. See these collections of records: Oldham Cemetery Registers, Lancashire Parish Registers and Manchester Parish Registers
 * Ancestry ($) - indexes and images of the nearly all Lancashire Church of England parish records. These are found in many sometimes overlapping collections, arranged by location (Manchester Cathedral, Manchester, Lancashire) and date. See Ancestry's Lancashire page.
 * FindMyPast has church records for Manchester
 * Lancashire Online Parish Clerks (OPC) - a volunter-run project that aims to to transcribe church records in Lancashire. Indexes and transcripts only, no images. Their site has 9.5 million records as of July 2018.
 * FreeReg is another volunteer-run project that provides transcriptions of church records, with no images. They have 1.9 million records from Lancashire as of July 2018.
 * Lancashire Parish Register Society - transcribes and publishes parish registers for pre-1837 Lancashire. Their published books may be accessed at local public and college libraries and archive institutions worldwide.
 * Manchester burials online

IGI and Extracted Records

 * 48% of Lancashire's parishes are indexed in Boyd's Marriage Index (£). Coverage. Popular places to marry included the towns of Garstang, Kirkham, Lancaster, Leyland, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, Standish, and Wigan.
 * 41 Lancashire parishes are indexed in Joiner's Marriage Index (£). Coverage.
 * Burials from 12 Lancashire places (134,942 entries) are included in the National Burial Index (£). Coverage.
 * 825,657 Lancashire entries are included in England &amp; Wales Christening Records, 1530-1906 at Ancestry (£). Formerly known as British Isles Vital Records Index - 2nd Ed. Coverage.
 * 287,538 Lancashire entries are included in England &amp; Wales Marriages, 1538-1940 at Ancestry (£). Formerly known as British Isles Vital Records Index - 2nd Ed. Coverage.

Marriage Licences

 * 1648-1755 - Marriage Bonds for the Deaneries of Lonsdale, Kendal, Furness and Copel: Part of the Archdeaconry of Richmond, Now Preserved at Lancaster (Preston). 7 vols..


 * 1668-1762 - Diocese of Carlisle, Marriage Licence/Bonds. 3 vols..

Offline records

 * Lancashire Parish Register Society - transcribes and publishes parish registers for pre-1837 Lancashire. Their published books may be accessed at local public and college libraries and archive institutions worldwide.

Catholic Records
Recusant rolls:


 * 1628 - Earwaker, J.P. Three Lancashire Subsidy Rolls, viz., for the Hundred of Salford, 1541, the Hundred of Salford, 1622 and the Hundred of Leyland, 1628, Together with a Recusant Roll for the Hundred of Leyland, in 1628. London: Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1885. Digital version at FamilySearch Digital Library.


 * The Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS) have made transcriptions of Catholic records from Manchester. Basic information is free online, the full details can only be viewed on CDs that must be ordered.
 * Liverpool History Projectshas over 200,000 Catholic church records from Liverpool.
 * Ancestry ($) has about 2.4 million Catholic church records from Liverpool.

Nonconformist Records

 * 1647-1996 - at FamilySearch — index, some images

For Further Reading

 * Raymond, Stuart A. Lancashire: a genealogical bibliography, vol. 2. Registers, inscriptions and wills. Birmingham [England]: Federation of Family History Societies, c 1996-1997.