Parishes

Parish Studies

The purpose of this page is to provide an index and links to the results of parish studies, whether created by me or submitted by others for inclusion here.

I have conducted a number of parish studies where I have listed all Warburton parish register entries for a parish and then attempted to group the entries into families on a ‘best fit’ basis, augmented by other information where available, such as Monumental Inscriptions and wills. Each parish has four basic PDF files (Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, and Families) plus others such as Monumental Inscriptions or Cemetery listings as appropriate.

I have identified families by grouping baptisms where parent’s names and place of birth are similar. I then matched these to male Warburton marriages where possible. I  sought marriages outside the parish where there is no matching marriage within the parish. I integrated deaths into the families where possible. I also tried to link the families together. Where age at death is available this often helps in linking families. I have also checked later families in the censuses.

Because families are determined on a best fit basis it is possible that the most obvious assumption does not apply in every case.

Original studies were from microfilms of the parish records but I now use on-line sources such as FamilySearch and the Lancashire On-line Parish Clerk, as these are becoming much more comprehensive. Also Ancestry and FindMyPast are getting increasing numbers of parish records, including images in some cases.

Bowdon Families

The ancient parish of Bowdon lies in what was North East Cheshire (now Trafford, a borough in Greater Manchester), between the rivers Mersey to the north, and Bollin to the south. Manchester lies 8 miles to the North East. The parish includes the townships of Bowdon, Altrincham, Hale, Dunham, and Timperley. It was primarily an agricultural area, and later a dormitory area for Manchester. Altrincham is a market town with a charter dating from 1290.

All Warburton baptisms, weddings and burials at St. Mary, Bowdon are listed. Burials at Altrincham Cemetery have also been added. The list was prepared in part by me from the parish registers and bishops transcripts (on microfilm). However I then discovered that the parish archivist, Derrick Murdie was close to completing a similar exercise for the parish and obtained his Warburton data. It includes baptisms at Ringway Chapel (from 1727), and St George’s Altrincham (from 1799), each a chapel-at-ease for Bowdon. Also included are baptisms at Hale Presbyterian Chapel, though I have also included a separate, commented listing for Hale Chapel for nostalgic reasons as it was my first ever study of (a film of) a real parish register.

Records at Bowdon are incomplete because of a tradition for nonconformist baptisms at home, at Ringway Chapel prior to 1723 when it served as an unofficial  nonconformist chapel, or at Hale Chapel before 1752 when its records began.

The entries have been grouped into families and those known to belong to my own Hale Barns clan, the Pool Bank clan, and the Warburton Village clan, are colour coded.

Baptisms      Marriages    Burials   Families    Altrincham Cemetery  Hale Chapel

Bury Families

Bury has one of the largest concentrations of Warburtons, with the earliest records of a Warburton within the parish found in a rental from Tottington dated 1442 (see Warburtons in the Tottington Manor Halmote Records). The parish records begin in the 1590s. I previously published the records up to 1700, but have now extended the lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as far as the Lancashire Online Parish Clerks website has transcribed them.

Early records lack the detail of later records, with baptisms only naming the father, and no ages on burial records. Abode is only mentioned intermittently, and some early burials are of “child of”, or even “wife of” a father or husband. The Bury records introduce the additional details much later than some other parishes.

Early Baptism records merely give a date and the name of the farther. However Bury records also usually give the date of birth from the mid-17th century onward. Except for illegitimate births, the name of the mother was only mentioned from 1798 onwards. Abode is given in some early baptisms, more regularly from 1729, and consistently from 1742 with occasional exceptions. Occupation is occasionally mentioned in the first half of the 18th century, but then ignored until is is consistently mentioned from 1813 onwards.

Marriage records from 1753 on include the groom’s occupation, and identify widows and widowers. They also indicate the parish of origin. Parish of origin was also declared between 1626 and 1717. Once registration began in 1837 the name and occupation of the bride and grooms fathers was recorded, and the age of the bride and groom was usually included from 1853 onwards. Witness were usually unrelated parish clerks but were occasionally family members, usually siblings. I have recorded Warburton witnesses.

Burial records include the father’s name for children, and sometimes mention a spouse. Abode is mentioned intermittently throughout, and consistently after 1765. Date of death was usually mentioned from 1648 until 1812 when it was replaced by age at death. The mother of children was mention from 1813 onwards. Burials at St John are included from 1791, but they don’t name the parents of children until 1823.

The records are reasonably continuous so far as I checked, but some early records have poor legibility. I only accessed the images for pre-1700 records already transcribed in online sources (FamilySearch and Ancestry), so there may be some omissions in the lists.

I have not extended the original pre-1700 Early Families list yet.

Because of the limited content of the entries, the Early Families list contains a lot of guesswork. There is a limited range of names, with John being the most common. Where abode is mentioned the most common are Holcombe, Tottington, Stubbins, and Elton. These all lie in the Irwell valley to the north and west of Bury.  Early families from the Edenfield and Tottington clans can be recognised.

I have used abode and date clashes to identify separate families with the same father’s name, but beyond that there is a lot of guesswork in the allocation of children to families, and wives to husbands where there is no matching marriage. The result is an impression rather than accurate detail.

The picture that emerges is of several families in a relatively small area. Combined with the information in the Halmote records this suggests they probably descended from one or two early settlers, and include lines from additional sons not mentioned in the earlier records. This corresponds with a Tottington Rental of 1662 that mentions four Johns and two Thomases (one deceased). In fact there are more families than marriages, raising the question of whether these extra marriages occurred elsewhere, or are merely lost from the Bury records.

Baptisms Marriages Burials Early Families

Frodsham

Frodsham is a parish in west Cheshire. The information for this parish was provided by Elaine Hopper. I have yet to collate a Families list.

Baptisms Marriages Burials

Great Budworth

Great Budworth is a parish in north Cheshire. It lies to the north of Northwich, and includes Arley Hall, the home of the Warburton family who were lords of the manor at Warburton village. Arley Hall was first occupied by Piers Warburton in 1469. The last Warburton, Sir Peter, the 5th baronet, died in 1813 and the Hall passed to his sister’s grandson.

As part of my research into the Warburtons of Arley Hall I trawled through a microfilm of the Great Budworth parish registers and listed Warburton entries between 1558 and 1734. The file includes picture notes showing some of the text that caused me trouble interpreting it so you can make your own assessment.

Great Budworth with Picture Notes

Haslingden Families

Haslingden lies in the county of Lancashire close to the Rossendale valley. It is about 16 miles north of Manchester, and eight miles north of Bury. It was a centre of the cotton industry.

Warburton baptisms, weddings, burials, and Monumental Inscriptions are listed for Haslingden,  St James. There is also a list of Monumental Inscriptions for Holden cemetery , and a list of all the families in the 1851 census where the head of the household was born in Haslingden. Finally the Haslingden, St James entries are grouped into families, and these are linked where possible, and colour coded where already included in documented clans.

The lists for St James include records up to 1851 (1861 for baptisms). Images of records are available up to 1913 on Ancestry, and there are a number of Wesleyan Chapels for which records are believed to exist, so there is scope to extend this parish in the future.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families   MIs    1851 Census   Holden Cemetery

Leigh Families

Leigh is in Lancashire, about 8 miles west of Manchester, and includes the townships of Tyldesley and Atherton.

Warburton baptisms, weddings, burials and Monumental Inscriptions from the Parish of Leigh are listed and grouped into families, including St Mary the Virgin, Leigh, Atherton, St George, Tyldesley, St Anne, Hindsford, and Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion, Tyldesley are included. Monumental Inscriptions are included with the burials.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families

Mobberley Families

Mobberley is a parish in north Cheshire. It lies south of Bowdon and  between Knutsford to the west, and Wilmslow to the east. It is a largely rural area.

Warburton baptisms, weddings, and burials at St. Wilfred, Mobberley are listed and grouped into families. Grave information has been added to the burials. Most of the families belong to the Mobberley clan which is an off-shoot of my own Hale Barns clan, and these are colour coded.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families

Rossendale Families

Rossendale covers the area betweenBury and Haslingden. It was a centre of the cotton industry. It includes Edenfield Chapel and  St Emmanuel, Holcombe which are part of the ancient parish of Bury, and  St Nicholas, Newchurch-in-Rossendale, which, like Haslingden, is part of the ancient parish of Whalley. As well as Edenfield, Holcombe and Newchurch, the area includes Tottington, Ramsbottom, Walmersley, and Stubbins.

Warburton baptisms, marriages, and burials, are listed for the three churches, though many marriages continued to be performed at St James, Bury.  I have also constructed a list of Warburton families, on a best fit basis, from the various parish records, and linked them together wherever possible. Census information has also been used in constructing the later families. Where the family has been linked to a clan this is indicated via a colour code.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families

Warrington Families

Warrington is a town on the north bank of the River Mersey, midway between Liverpool and Manchester. Historically in Lancashire, it was included in Cheshire in 1974 when the formation of the Merseyside and Greater Manchester Borough Counties cut it off from the rest of Lancashire.

Being less than 8 miles from the village of Warburton it has developed a large Warburton population, and the parish church of St Elphin has a large number of Warburton baptisms, marriages and burials.

The construction of Families is still a work in progress. The current Families document is a deconstructed collection of the elements that will be combined to form families. However with over 150 male marriages, and the likelihood many groups of baptisms may involve parents who married elsewhere, the construction of families may take some time, and will be pursued over the next few weeks alongside other activities. Meanwhile the information is available to anyone who wishes form their own constructions.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families

Wilmslow Families

Wilmslow is in north Cheshire, lying south east of Bowdon, and east of Mobberley.

Warburton baptisms, weddings, and burials at St. Bartholomew, Wilmslow are listed and grouped into families. Some grave information is included in the burials.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burial   Families

Winwick Families

Winwick is a parish in Lancashire lying immediately to the north of Warrington, and south of Leigh. It includes the townships of Houghton, Middleton, and Arbury.

Warburton baptisms, weddings, and burials  at St Oswald, Winwick are listed and grouped into families. Grave information is included in the burials.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families

Irish Families

Most Irish parish records were lost in a fire in 1922, during the Irish civil war. However some, mainly from the protestant Church of Ireland, have survived. Part of the loss is filled by the work of Sir William Betham (1779–1853). Betham was an English-born Irish Herald and antiquarian. Betham made genealogical notes from virtually all of the prerogative wills and administrations of Ireland from 1536–1800 and formed some of them into pedigree charts. He also noted Marriage Licenses, and some other records of interest. Images from Betham’s notebooks are available on FindMyPast, and I have transcribed all the Warburton references.

I have recorded the available Warburton baptisms. marriages and burials, and collected the baptisms and male marriages together into families where possible. The baptisms also include non-Warburton baptisms where a Warburton was sponsor. The Betham transcripts are in a separated document.

Baptisms   Marriages   Burials   Families  William Betham’s Abstracts

Altrincham Monumental Inscriptions

The Family History Society of Cheshire have produced a CD of Monumental Inscriptions covering a number of churches in the Altrincham district.  Altrincham was a town in the ancient parish of Bowdon but became a parish in its own right in 1866. The CD includes churches from surrounding parishes including Lymm, Warburton, Northenden, Rostherne, and Knutsford, but not Bowdon.

I have extracted the Warburton burials and presented them alphabetically, and by church and grave.

Alphabetic

By Church and Grave

Crewe – Recent Deaths

This is a list of all Warburton deaths registered in and around Crewe since 1945 (ip to around 2005). Where there are obituaries this is also indicated, together with an indication of spouses where known. I have also listed marriages and associated baptisms but have not put these here as they contain living people. I can check on specifics if anyone has queries.

Deaths

Miscellaneous Parish Register Information

Warburton parish register entries have been provided to me from various sources.  Alan Jenks provided information from various South Cheshire parishes including baptisms at Coppenhall St Michael (Crewe) between1817 and 1865, and at Over St Chad (Winsford) between 1813 and 1911. These are grouped into families with marriage information added where found. There are also burial plot records from Coppenhall (1813-1911), and an index to the burial registers at Shocklach (1813-99), and some miscellaneous marriages. Cathy Warburton provided some early entries from Warrington St Elphin. Beryl Monaghan provided entries from Turton and Walmsley, near Bolton. A selection of parish register entries from Warburton, St Werberg, Warburton was sent to me by Martin Warburton.

Baptisms and Burials   Marriages   St Werberg Parish Records