West Bromwich St James (formerly Hill Top), Staffordshire Genealogy

Guide to West Bromwich St James (formerly Hill Top), Staffordshire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Hill Top was an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Staffordshire, created in 1844 from West Bromwich All Saints, Staffordshire Ancient Parish and referred to as West Bromwich St. James (see church records)

BROMWICH, WEST (All Saints), a town and parish, and the head of a union, in the hundred of Offlow South, S. division of the county of Stafford, situated about 6 miles (N. W.) from Birmingham, 4 miles (E.) from Dudley, and 4 (S.) from Walsall; adjoining the town of Wednesbury. There are many places of worship for dissenters of different denominations. The Wesleyans have five meeting-houses, the Independents have four meeting-houses, the Baptists two, the Roman Catholics one; and the Primitive Methodists, Ranters, and others, have four or five small places of meeting.

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.

See West Midlands BMD and Staffordshire BMD

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 - Staffordshire ($)
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Staffordshire ($)
 * 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)

Poor Law Unions
West Bromwich Poor Law Union,Staffordshire

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Staffordshire 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