Stoak or Stoke, Cheshire Genealogy

England Cheshire  Stoke

History
Stoak St Lawrence is an Ancient parish in Cheshire and includes Little Stanney.

A Saxon chapel was originally on the site. It was not mentioned in the Domesday Book but fragments of architecture still present in the 19th century showed that a new church must have been built soon after the Norman conquest. Ormerod quotes sources from the 14th century which stated that at that time the church was "a sumptuous fabric of stone and wood, of great size, with four bells, but was then becoming ruinous". The present church dates from its rebuilding in 1827, undertaken by George Edgecombe (or Edgecumbe), and very little of the original work remains. A further restoration was carried out in 1911–12.

The name may also be spelled Stoke which is the name of the civil parish; the ecclesiastical parish was Stoak.

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 neighboring 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.

Parish registers for Stoke, 1573-1964

An index for Cheshire parish registers is available online in Record Search

Cheshire Record Office reference: P31/1/1-4, P31/2/1-2, P31/3059/1/1-2, P31/3059/2-4, P31/5

Bishop's transcripts for Stoke, 1607-1848

An index for Cheshire, Church of England, Bishop’s transcripts is available online in Record Search

Records are not in strict chronological order. Some years are missing.

Poor Law Unions

 * Great Boughton (1837–71)
 * Chester (1871–1930)

http://www.institutions.org.uk/workhouses/england/ches/great_broughton_workhouse.htm

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.html?Chester/Chester.shtml

Registration Districts
Great Boughton (1837–69) Chester (1870–1937) West Cheshire (1937–74) Chester and Ellesmere Port (1974–98) Cheshire West (post 1998)

registration events may be searched online at Cheshire BMD

Probate Jurisdictions
Cheshire Probate Jurisdictions, Parishes S-Z

Maps
England Jurisdictions 1851