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ENGLAND JURISDICTIONS FOR 1851 is a map of the counties of England produced by Family Search. The map shows various levels of county division including parish and civil registration districts. The parish map shows all the ecclesiastical parishes in the historic county of Essex (Anglican Church parishes).


Civil registration commenced on 1st July 1837. Over the years with the growth and movement of the population the civil registration districts have altered. REGISTRATION DISTRICTS IN ESSEX on the Genuki website tracks the changes made up to 31st March 1974 and also has a downloadable place name index which includes the registration district each was registered in.




CHURCH BURIAL REGISTERS



GENUKI has a list of Essex churches which includes Anglican and non-conformist churches by place and by name of church. FAMILY SEARCH has information on each Anglican church and parish.



ESSEX RECORD OFFICE (SEAX is the record office  online catalogue) holds monumental inscriptions and the deposited church registers for most of historic Essex excluding parishes in the now London borough of Waltham Forest. Information on and actual digital online images for Anglican parish registers and non-conformist registers, those not conforming to the established church – the Church of England  can be found on the Essex Record Office website ESSEX ANCESTORS. There is a subscription charge to view the images of the pages from the church registers. Essex Ancestors has no name indexes.

LOCAL LIBRARIES (Colchester, Harlow, Saffron Waldron and Southend-on-Sea) also hold microfilm copies of parish registers for parishes in their immediate area. A list of all ESSEX LIBRARIES



The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons, has many family history centres around the world. You can order and use their microfilms for a small charge. A list of their CENTRES It is worth checking their catalogue to see which parish and cemetery registers they hold on microfilm in their FILM CATALOGUE

FAMILY SEARCH England Deaths and Burials 1538-1991 is a free index from the LDS which includes information about the records and sources.
ESSEX PARISH REGISTERS 1538-1900 a free index from the LDS including information about the records.




The National Burial Index 3 (NBI) CD was released March 2010 and covers 295 burial grounds in Essex. See the FEDERATION OF FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES website for coverage. Some of the indexes from the NBI are also on FINDMY PAST though not all Family History Societies have allowed their indexes from the NBI to be transferred to this website. Findmypast also has some monumental inscriptions for Essex.



Essex Family History Society has published transcripts of church registers and offer searches in their burial index and for transcriptions of monumental inscriptions. The BURIAL INDEX (1537-2000 mainly Anglican parishes) MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTION search and CDS published by the society PARISH REGISTER PUBLICATIONS and PARISH COVERAGE



Information on the privately held ESSEX BURIAL INDEX 1813-1865


ESSEX ONLINE PARISH CLERKS have some parish burials and monumental inscriptions indexed
Moderator comment: link broken



FREEREG where volunteers transcribe registers and place them online.

Click on any of the blue underlined hyperlinks to view any information you are interested in.



From 1801 onwards, information about the population of the United Kingdom has been collected every ten years by means of a census, with the exception of 1941 due to World War Two (though on 29th September 1939 there was a National Registration which contained information very similar to a census). The 1931 census was destroyed in a fire in 1942.


Censuses are subject to the 100 year ruling though most of the information on the census household schedules for 1911 was released two years early.


The National Archives’ podcast on COUNTING THE PEOPLE and TNA information on LOOKING FOR RECORDS OF A CENSUS and their in-depth guide CENSUS RETURNS are all useful starting points to understanding census records.
 




CENSUSES 1801-1831


The first four censuses were essentially head counts which named just the head of household.

The 1801 census provide information on the number of inhabited and uninhabited houses in the parish and how many families occupied them. A similar format was followed for the censuses of 1811, 1821 and 1831. In 1821 a question relating to age was added and in 1831 a question on occupations, though some earlier censuses may give information on head of household occupations beyond a general tally of agricultural, trade and other.


Nationally none of these first four censuses survives but locally some census parish returns do survive and some, but not all, have been indexed.



The dates of the first four censuses


10th March 1801     27th May 1811     28th May 1821     30th May 1831


The population of England and Wales at the time of each census


1801 - 9,053,170  (Essex 226,437)         
1811 - 10,164,256 (Essex 252,473)           
1821 - 12,000,236 (Essex 289,424)         
1831 - 13,896,797 (Essex 317,507)



You can check which early known censuses for England have survived and where they are held   


CENSUS SCHEDULES AND LISTINGS, 1801-1831: AN INTRODUCTION AND GUIDE



Examples of early CENSUSES from 1801 and 1821



ARDLEIGH early censuses 1796, 1811 and 1821 online

Click on any of the blue underlined hyperlinks in the guide to view the information you are interested in.



The National Archives podcast IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN: WILLS FOR FAMILY HISTORY is a talk on ‘how to access wills and how you can use them to get a better understanding of what life was really like for your ancestors'.


Modern surveys differ on what proportion of the current population has a will, but even the most optimistic put it at less than half. The National Consumer Council’s research in 2007 not unsurprisingly revealed that older people and those in higher socio-economic groups were more likely to make wills. Given the modern context it isn’t unexpected that most of our ancestors did not leave wills, but where they did they can be very useful and informative documents.


Other than lunatics, convicted traitors and felons, wills could be made by anyone to arrange what they wished to happen to both their personal property and their real estate after their deaths. From 1837 onwards a person had to be of full age, 21 years of age, to make a will. This was reduced in 1970 to 18. The Wills (Soldiers and Sailors) Act 1918 allowed for a soldier on active service or sailor at sea to make a valid will, even though they were under the age of 18. Before 1837 wills could be made by boys from the age of 14 onwards and girls from the age of 12. It was however extremely rare for a minor to make a will. Until the Married Women's Property Act 1882, wives could not make wills without the permission of their husbands. Women in general were far less likely to make wills than men.



THE PROCESS


The Person making and leaving a will is known as the testator (testatrix if female).
A will was normally signed (or a mark made) by the testator and witnessed by two people, who after 1752 were not allowed to be beneficiaries. A codicil (or codicils) was written at a later date and was an additional document, found at the end of the will, which modified the terms of the original document. It needed to be signed and witnessed. 

A Non-cupative will or ‘deathbed will’ was an orally declared will in front of two witnesses. A holographic will was handwritten by the person making the will, signed and dated by them but not witnessed. This sort of will was often found amongst the deceased papers. These types of wills were legal until the Wills Act 1837. In the case of non-cupative wills an exception was made after 1837 for military personnel on active service and merchant seamen.


The testator needed to name executor/executrix (male/female) in the will who were to administer and distribute the estate after death. These executor(s) had to apply to a court to have the validity of the will verified. This process was known as proving the will. The court then issued a document called a grant of probate. Not all wills that were written were necessarily proved by executors, and not all wills that were proved were done so immediately after death. It is possible that events that happened subsequently would cause a will to be proved at a much later date. Admon with will attached maybe such a will. Letters of Administration (Admon) were granted by the court to next of kin when no will was made or could be found, or because the executors were unable to prove the will. Letters of Administration included the name of the deceased, their abode and sometimes their occupation; the date of the admon and post 1858 the date of their death. The name, address/abode and sometimes occupation of the administrator appointed and usually their relationship to the deceased, if they have one, was also included. When a person did not leave a will they were deemed to have died intestate, which was not a problem for most of our ancestors who did not own property or have savings in a bank.  What little they left was divided by their family amicably or not, amongst themselves.


From 1529/30 until 1782 it was necessary for the executor or administrator of the estate to make a list or inventory of the personalty (moveable property) of the deceased. Not all inventories have survived.

A Sentence was a judgement about a disputed will given at the conclusion of litigation. A sentence does not necessarily contain the same details as a will.

Click on any of the blue underlined hyperlinks in the guide to view the information you are interested in.



There is a parish map for all the ecclesiastical parishes in the historic county of Buckinghamshire (Anglican Church parishes) on the BUCKINGHAMSHIRE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY website. GENUKI gives further information on each parish
 


ENGLAND JURISDICTIONS FOR 1851 is a map of the counties of England produced by Family Search. The map shows various levels of county division including parish and civil registration districts.
Civil registration commenced on 1st July 1837. Over the years with the growth and movement of the population the civil registration districts have altered.
REGISTRATION DISTRICTS IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE on the Genuki website tracks the changes made up to 31st March 1974 and also has a downloadable place name index which includes the registration district each was registered in.   



The county record office the CENTRE FOR BUCKINGHAMSHIRE STUDIES has online lists of the ANGLICAN and NON-CONFORMIST burial registers that have been deposited with them.
Buckingham, Chesham and High Wycombe LIBRARIES also hold microfilm copies of parish registers for their areas.

 

The Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons, has many family history centres around the world. You can order and use their microfilms for a small charge. A list of their CENTRES     
It is worth checking their catalogue to see which parish and cemetery registers they hold on microfilm in their FILM CATALOGUE



The National Burial Index 3 (NBI) CD was released March 2010 and covers 176 parishes in Buckinghamshire. See the FEDERATION OF FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETIES website for coverage.   
Some of the indexes from the NBI are also on FINDMY PAST though not all Family History Societies have allowed their indexes from the NBI to be transferred to this website.



BUCKINGHAMSHIRE FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY has published transcripts of church burial registers and offer searches in their indexes.
BURIAL INDEX (to 1901)
MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS
PARISH REGISTER PUBLICATIONS
 

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