Canterbury St Dunstan, Kent Genealogy

Guide to Canterbury St Dunstan, Kent ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish register transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
Canterbury St Dunstan is an Ancient Parish in the city. The church is referred to in 1174 as the place in which King Henry II, during his penitential pilgrimage following the murder of Thomas a Becket in the Canterbury Cathedral, changed into sackcloth.

The church contains memorials to the Roper family, Margaret daughter of Sir Thomas More and wife of William Roper.

St Dunstan also contains a recent stained glass window to commemorate the visit of Pope John Paul II to Canterbury.

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.

Registration Districts

 * 1837-1894 Blean Registration District
 * 1894-1910 Canterbury Registration district

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 - Kent ($)
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Kent ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at Findmypast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census Records

 * Census returns for Canterbury, 1841-1891

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


 * Ancestry UK Census Collection
 * Findmypast Census

Poor Law Unions

 * Blean 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.


 * England, Kent, Wills and Probate - FamilySearch Historical Records

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

Websites

 * Kent Archives and Local History Kent County Council
 * Parishes: St Dunstan's near Canterbury British History Online
 * St Dunstan Canterbury Kent Churches
 * St Dunstan Canterbury Wikipedia
 * St Dunstan Church, Canterbury Kent Archaeological Society