Wirksworth, Derbyshire Genealogy

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

Parish History
WIRKSWORTH, a town, a township, a parish, a sub-district, and a hundred, in Derbyshire. The parish contains four townships in Belper district, five in Ashborne district, and two in Bakewell district.

WIRKSWORTH (St. Mary), a market-town and parish, in the union of Belper, chiefly in the hundred of Wirksworth, but partly in that of Appletree, and partly in that of High Peak, county of Derby. This place, formerly written Wircesworth, Werchestworde, Wyrkysworth. There is also a manor within the parish, which has no courts, called the Holland, or Richmond, manor, granted in 1553, by the crown, to Ralph Gell. The parish includes the chapelries of Alderwasley and Cromford; the townships of Ashley-Hay, Biggin, Hopton, Ible, and Idridgehay with Allton; and the hamlets of Callow, Ivonbrook-Grange, and Middleton. There are places of worship for Baptists, Independents, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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. John Palmer's Wirksworth website with index to St Mary's registers is engineered for searches by individual and by family. It is free and covers Wirksworth and neighboring areas up to forty miles away. 

Church Records
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * Joiner Marriage Index - Derbyshire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Derbyshire ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)
 * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint
 * General Baptist
 * Independent/Congregational
 * Primitive Methodist
 * Wesleyan Methodist

Poor Law Unions
Belper Poor Law Union, Derbyshire

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

Courtesy of David Kiernan: Wills, Probates and Inventories 1524-1602for this area and held at the Lichfield Record Office.

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

Taxes
The Hearth Tax 1662-70: Courtesy of John Palmer of Dorset

Websites
Wirksworth on GENUKI