Chichester Cathedral Close, Sussex Genealogy

Guide to Chichester Cathedral Close, Sussex ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
CHICHESTER, a city and market-town, having exclusive jurisdiction, locally in the hundred of Box and Stockbridge, rape of Chichester, W. division of Sussex, 62 miles (S. W. by S.) from London. Chichester comprises the parishes of All Saints, or the Pallant or Palatinate, containing 327 inhabitants; St. Andrew, 625; St. Martin, 282; St. Olave, 238; St. Pancras, partly within and partly without the walls, 1065; St. Peter the Great, or the Subdeanery, 5021; St. Peter the Less, 349; and St. Bartholomew Without, 297; with the precinct of the Cathedral Close, 145. These parishes were, by act of parliament in 1753, united for the better maintenance of the poor, under the inspection of guardians. There are also an extra-parochial district called Newton, formerly the Black friars, containing 123 persons; and a small extra-parochial plot beyond the walls, called St. James', and containing 40 inhabitants. There are places of worship in the city for the Society of Friends, Huntingtonians, Independents, Wesleyans, and Unitarians.

Chichester Cathedral Close is an extra-parochial place. Search surrounding parishes for records and information.

Chichester Sussex Online Parish Clerks(OPC) and Chichester the Close Sussex (OPC)

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.

From 1837 this parish was in the Chichester registration district

Certificates can be ordered from West Sussex Centralised Certificates Office Registration Service West Sussex Record Office County Hall Chichester PO19 1RN Phone: 01243 642122

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

CHICHESTER The Close records held at West Sussex Record Office Bap 1664-1751, 1772-1790, 1813-1862 Mar 1664-1746, 1863-1904 Bur 1664-1751, 1772-1790, 1813-1863 Bishop’s transcripts 1813-1832

Contact West Sussex Record Office 3 Orchard Street Chichester West Sussex PO19 1DD Phone: 01243 753602 Fax: 01243 533959 Email: records.office@westsussex.gov.uk

Link to the FamilySearch Catalogue showing the film numbers in their collection

Census Records
See Sussex Census

Poor Law Unions
Chichester Poor Law Union, Sussex

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Sussex 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
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain