Woodnesborough, Kent Genealogy

England Kent  Kent Parishes



Parish History
Woodnesborough is a village and civil parihs in the Dover district of Kent, two miles west of Sandwich, see Woodnesborough Wikipedia

Woodnesborough St Mary the Virgin is an Ancient Parish in the Diocese of Canterbury; the church dates from about 1200 and was restored in later centuirs including the 1888 restoration by Christian.A map of the parish boundary is available at A church near you and the modern parish is part of the united benefice of Woodnesborough with Worth, Kent and Staple, Kent

The church is designated a grade II* listed building by English Heritage. British Listed building

See Edward Hasted The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 10 (1800), pp. 121-144 at British History Online and Kent Churches website

Civil Registration
Eastry Registration District and Thanet Registration District

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

The Mansion House (Certificate Centre) Grove Hill Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1EP

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Kent Online Parish Clerks (OPC)

From Spring 2012 material formerly held at Centre for Kentish Studies,County Hall,Maidstone,Kent ME14 1XX is available at Kent History and Library Centre see Kent Archives which also enables a search of the catalogue for Kent Archives material deposited at Canterbury Cathedral Archives

Family History Library film numbers

See also England, Kent, Parish Registers and Bishop's Transcripts (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Land Tax
Images for Woodnesborough are available at FamilySearch Records see England, Kent, Land Tax Assessments (FamilySearch Historical Records) 1780-1832

Census records
FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. to locate local Family History Centres in UK to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search.

Poor Law Unions
Eastry Poor Law Union, Kent

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.

Maps and Gazetteers
WOODNESBOROUGH (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and hundred of Eastry, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 1¾ mile (W. S. W.) from Sandwich.