The Ancient Parish of YORKSHIRE
[Transcribed information mainly from the early 1820s]
"YORKSHIRE, a maritime county of England; bounded N. by Durham and the Tees, NE. and E. by the North Sea, S. by the Humber
and Lincolnshire, Notts, and Derbyshire, SW. by Cheshire, W. by Lancashire, and N.W. by Westmorland; length, E. and W., 96
miles; breadth, 80 miles; area, 3,882,851 acres, population 2,886,564. Yorkshire is the first county of England in point of size, and
the third in point of population. From the mouth of the Tees to Flamborough Head the coast is bold and rocky; from Flamborough
Head to Spurn Head it lies low. The interior presents the appearance of a great central valley stretching SE. to the Humber, and flanked
on either side by heights - on the E. by the Cleveland Hills and the Wolds, and on the W. by the Pennine chain. . . Yorkshire
takes high rank as an agricultural, manufacturing, and mining county. It is well supplied with every means of communication.
It has from an early period been divided into 3 Ridings - viz., East, North, and West, besides the Ainsty or Liberty of the city
of York. Each Riding has a lord-lieutenant and a separate court of quarter sessions and a commission of the peace, and statistically
is treated as a distinct county. It contains 26 wapentakes; 3 liberties; 1636 pars. with parts of 2 others; the parliamentary
and municipal boroughs of Bradford (3 members), Dewsbury (1 member), Halifax (2 members), Huddersfield (1 member), Kingston upon Hull
(3 members), Leeds (5 members), Middlesbrough (1 member), Pontefract (1 member), Scarborough (1 member), Sheffield (5 members), Wakefield
(1 member), and York (2 members); and the municipal boroughs of Barnsley, Batley, Beverley, Doncaster, Hedon, Morley, Richmond,
Ripon, and Rotherham. It is in the dioceses of York, Ripon, and Manchester."
(Transcribed from Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles,
1887. -C.H.)
In order to assist in your navigation of the 170,000+ pages and photographs within
the Yorkshire GENUKI site, please read the "Important Information" page.
The page includes some tips, term definitions etc. etc.
If you don't know (or need a re-cap of) terms such as:
Dale, Wapentake, Parish, Deanery etc. please see the page of definitions of terms.
INFORMATION RELATED TO ALL OF YORKSHIRE
"
- Elsewhere in England for most of the counties you will find a County Record Office, sometimes with "sub-offices".
In Yorkshire however the situation is anything but simple, not helped by the change in 1974. Prior to 1974 there were simply
the 3 Ridings and York (and these Genuki Yorkshire pages are laid out in that system). After 1974 the overall administrative boundaries
of Yorkshire changed, as did the internal boundaries and Yorkshire became North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, North
Humberside, and part of Cleveland with bits of Yorkshire being "given" to County Durham and Lancashire. Since 1974,
things have changed yet again but not so drastically. If you are unfortunate enough to be looking for records in the parts that
have changed you may have difficulty!
There are county record offices for North Yorkshire (not the same as the old North Riding) and the modern East Riding (was
North Humberside and not the same as the old East Riding). West Yorkshire (not the same as the West Riding) has all
of its records united. Both Kingston upon Hull and York (which is now in North Yorkshire) have City Archives. For South Yorkshire
(the southern part of the old West Riding) has its archive services provided by the four district councils independently.
Additionally there are two institutions which hold archives for the whole of the old Yorkshire: The Borthwick Institute of
Historical Research of the University of York, and the Yorkshire Archaeological Society (YAS). All of the above services are listed
below, along with a few others:
- The
East Riding of Yorkshire Archives Service exists to collect, preserve
and make available to the public the historic records of the East Riding. The Archives Service holds over 10,000 linear feet
of documents dating from the 12th century to the present day. These records contain information about every community in the
East Riding and cover a wide range of subjects.
- The
North Yorkshire County Record Office collects, preserves, and makes
available a wealth of archive material relating to the history of the county of North Yorkshire. They hold millions of documents
all shapes, sizes and ages which can be used to obtain information for many personal, legal, administrative and historical purposes
including tracing ancestors and family history and genealogy. They maintain
an online catalogue of descriptions of most of their documents.
- The
West Yorkshire Archive Service (West Yorkshire
County Record Office) exists to preserve the county's heritage of historical documents and to help members of the public make
use of them.
They have an
on-line catalogue covering all five of their offices.
-
The York City Archives are open 9.00 am till 5.00pm Monday to Friday closed for lunch 1.00pm till 2.00pm.
They hold the corporation records covering approximately 800 years, and there are no charges for researchers visiting the
archives, and no appointment is necessary.
-
Hull City Archives hold a wealth of information, covering the rich and varied fortunes of the city. The collections include
non-conformist churches, local families, municipal cemeteries and records of the courts. In addition they hold unique photographs
many of which are now accessible online via their historical photographs database.
- South Yorkshire
-
Doncaster Archives and Local Studies
-
Rotherham Archives and Local Studies Service
-
The Borthwick Institute of Historical Research is at the University of York.
-
The Yorkshire Archaeological Society exists to promote the study of Yorkshire's historical
past - agriculture, archaeology, architecture, history, industry, religion and the people of the historic county.
-
Brynmor Jones Library Archives and Manuscripts (Hull University): (includes
Family and estate papers, and Solicitors' archives)
- The
Friends of Teesside Archives exists to promote and assist Teesside
Archives and to promote conservation of documents etc in the Cleveland county area. Its volunteers, among other things,
help with the indexing of parish records, rate books, electoral rolls and other records of interest to family and local historians.
- The
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (now National Archives) has a most
useful Web-site which has searchable databases containing information on where collections of archives can be found. The search can
be by people, places or Companies.It also has on-line a Manorial Documents Register for England which, although not complete,
does cover the whole of Yorkshire.
-
The Yorkshire Film Archive Online has lots of old films on-line, such as
the Climmers at Bempton, Queen Victoria in Sheffield, Country Potters, etc. etc.
- A
list of books relating to Yorkshire has been produced by the members of the Yorksgen mailing list.
- The following books can be read or downloaded from the Genuki site:
- A transcription of the book "
Yorkshire Folk talk" dealing with the Eastern half of Yorkshire,
written by the Rev. M. Morris in 1892. Transcribed by Colin Hinson.
- A transcription of the book "
The British Workman" dealing with a farm worker from the
Wolds area, again written by the Rev. M. Morris. Transcribed by Graham Metcalf.
- A "
Guide to Richmond", produced in 1833 by W.R. Robinson, and
describing Richmond and the surrounding area with various histories, but very few ordinary people mentioned. Transcribed by Colin Hinson.
- An unpublished book "
Scarborough's war years, 1939-1945" by Richard James Percy. This book describes the blackout,
evacuees, fortifications, bombing, etc. Whilst it deals with the Scarborough area, it will be of interest to others as an example
of what went on during the war years. Associated with this, you might also like to read the documents on
"
Evacuation from Newcastle and Gateshead in 1939".
- See also under Church Records and History.
- The
Dalesman publishing company not only publishes books and magazines about the Yorkshire Dales, but also about the rest of Yorkshire too.
They also have a "Family Quest" section on their web-site.
-
Baines's History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of York, 1822
and 1823. These two volumes cover the whole of the county between them, giving descriptions and/or history of all the places,
and a list of people in Trades and Professions for the larger places.
-
Bulmer's History and Directory for East and North Yorkshire 1892 and 1890, giving descriptions and/or history of all the places,
and a list of people in Trades and Professions for the larger places.
-
Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven gives a history of each parish in the
Deanery of Craven, complete with pedigrees for the major families.
The book was originally published in 1812, and the final updated version in 1878.
- During our visits to Yorkshire, I have taken over 45,000 photographs of graves in the East Riding. You can access the
Graves Surname index here.
- In her travels round the county, Mel Towler has built up a large number of "Stray" inscriptions. These have been posted to
Yorksgen and other lists one at a time and can be
seen here, listed complete up to December 2001.
- A list of the
1851 and 1881 Census Yorkshire "strays" (people born in Yorkshire, but not in Yorkshire
at the time of the census) including Wales and the counties of Derbyshire, Devon, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Northumberland, Surrey and
Warwickshire transcribed by Carol Clyde.
- Alan Longbottom has transcribed the notes from some of the census data for the years 1821 and 1831:
- Colin Blanshard Withers kindly donated the contents of his book "
Yorkshire Parish Registers"
which gives the dates of and the whereabouts of church registers is to be found on each of the
Genuki Yorkshire parish pages
under "Church Records".
- The Yorkshire Archaeological Society holds copies of a lot of the parish registers in printed form as books, micro-fiche
and CD rom. Please see their
Yorkshire Parish Register web-site for more information.
- The Society of Genealogists hold a considerable number of copies of
Parish Registers for Yorkshire and the rest of the counties in the UK.
-
Paver's marriage licenses is a series of extracts from Marriage Licenses,
formerly preserved in the Registry of York, is taken from a MS. of Mr. W. Paver. Transcribed by Colin Hinson.
- The
Northowram Register is a register of nonconformists produced by the Revs Oliver Heywood and T.Dickenson
between 1644 and 1752. Transcribed by Colin & Pauline Hinson.
- Ted Wildy's UK Marriage witness index entries for:
- Paul Joiner's
Marriage Index for Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire.
- The
Quaker FHS have a series of pages on locating Quaker Records in
various parts of the UK. There are separate pages for most of the pre-1974 English counties, including Yorkshire.
- The Yorkshire Quaker Heritage Project have on line databases which enable the user to trace references to specific
individuals and families within Monthly Meeting minute books, eventually for the years 1652 to 1948. These do not cover
the whole of Yorkshire. For the available records for Brighouse; Knaresborough; Leeds; and Settle, see the
Leeds University Quaker records site, and for the records that are available for the rest of Yorkshire (the East Riding and
part of the North Riding, centred on Malton, Scarborough, Whitby, Pickering, Bridlington, Owstwick, Cave, and Hull) see the
Hull University site, following the "Online databases" link.
- Sheila Wilson Smith has transcribed the
Yorkshire "Strays" from the published indexes of The Combined Methodist
Baptisms for the Isle of Axholme in the Counties of Lincolnshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.
- In general, in order to find a Birth, Death or Marriage registration (or Certificate), you need to deal with the appropriate Registration
Office. To find the Registration Office where this information is now (they changed over the years), you need to go to the appropriate
Riding list of Registration districts (In "1" below) to find which Office currently holds the data, and then go to
"2" below to find the address of that Office. If you do not know which Riding the place you are looking for is in,
then use the
"Where is it in Yorkshire" files to find out. You should also look
under
Towns and Parishes for more information on places in Yorkshire.
- There is a list of Registration Districts for the
- There is a list of
Register Office addresses for England and Wales, maintained by Peter Abbott. This includes some instructions for obtaining Certificates.
-
The Yorkshire BMD is an on-going project to put on-line the indexes to births,
marriages and deaths, based on the original civil registrations from 1837 to 1950, held at the local
register offices of Yorkshire.
- The Register Offices of the former county of Cleveland (Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar & Cleveland, and Hartlepool) have
the indexes of their Registers online.
- There are two excellent descriptions transcribed from Bulmer's History and gazetteers, one for the
East Riding (1892) and one for the
North Riding (1890).
- A short description of the county transcribed by Steve Garton from
Pigot's 1834 Gazetteer and Directory.
- The
Yorkshire Information Centre contains descriptions of various parts of Yorkshire, particularly the northern half.
- Garry Stockdill has an excellent web site which he calls "
Yorksview".
This contains many photographs and description of places mainly (but not all) in the western half of Yorkshire. Garry has also
contributed many of the church photographs from the West Riding which appear on this site.
- The freefoto.com website provides photographs for free download. Most of these are linked to from the appropriate parish pages,
but some areas cover more than one parish. These are:
Swaledale(4 pages),
Wensleydale,
Wharfedale
and
The Humber Bridge.
- Devoted to walking in Yorkshire, the
Dales Walks web site gives details (including photos) of walks
around the various Yorkshire Dales and "
The Three Peaks walk" website gives information and photographs
of the walk over the peaks of Ingleborough, Whernside and Penyghent.
- There are web sites giving lots of photographs and visitor information etc. for the more popular tourist parts of Yorkshire such as:
- Tourist guide and where to stay in the
North Yorkshire Moors area (the North East of Yorkshire).
-
England's North East is a site dedicated to history, identity and places to visit in Yorkshire and the North East.
- A
Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire (a list of place names, with descriptions) in 1822, by Thomas Langdale.
-
Where is it in Yorkshire? - A hyperlinked index to information on nearly all the places in Yorkshire: cities, towns,
villages, most of the hamlets and some single houses. The list also includes links to information on some places which no longer exist.
- There are pages containing the
definitions of territorial terms such as Riding, Wapentake, parish etc.
- Can you help? The ancient parish pages for the Yorkshire section of Genuki were generated from the above mentioned book
by Thomas Langdale. I am unable to locate some of these places in the modern world. If you can tell me where any of these are, it would be much appreciated:
- Surnames interest lists:
- Mailing lists
- As you can see from the list below, there are many genealogical mailing lists for Yorkshire. The most active list is YORKSGEN which
covers the whole of Yorkshire. Most of the rest of the lists deal with specific towns or small areas.
Please keep in mind that someone subscribed to Yorksgen but has an interest in (for instance) Leeds, may not be a subscriber to the Leeds list.
There have been big changes on the Rootsweb server and consequently it cannot be guaranteed that the links
concerned with that server will work. As of 28/7/18, the links below will take you to the relevant page on the Rootsweb server.
You will find information on how to subscribe there. If you are looking for other mailing lists for the UK, then use the Genuki
list of Mailing lists (assuming that the links there work)
- The
YORKSGEN Mailing List is an unmoderated list administrated by Lin Duke, dedicated to the genealogy, and history of the whole of the
County of Yorkshire. The scope of this list covers the pre-1974 county boundaries.
- The
WEST-RIDING
Mailing List is an unmoderated list administrated by Lin Duke, dedicated to the genealogy and history of the (old) West Riding of Yorkshire.
The scope of this list covers the pre-1974 county boundaries which is the area relevant to genealogy.
- The
SHEFFIELD Mailing List is an unmoderated list dedicated to the genealogy and history of the Sheffield and
Rotherham areas. The scope of this list covers the same areas as those covered by the Sheffield FHS and the Rotherham FHS.
- The
EAST-YORKS Mailing List is an unmoderated list dedicated to the genealogy, and history of the (old) East
Riding of Yorkshire. The scope of this list covers the pre-1974 county boundaries which is the area relevant to genealogy.
- The
NORTH-YORKS Mailing List is an unmoderated list administrated by Lin Duke, dedicated to the genealogy, and history of the (old) North
Riding of Yorkshire. The scope of this list covers the pre-1974 county boundaries which is the area relevant to genealogy, and
also the present North Yorkshire (please note that North Yorkshire covers a large part of the old West Riding, parts of the old
East Riding, but not all of the old North Riding)
- The
ENG-YORKSHIRE Mailing List is an unmoderated list administrated by Lin Duke, and is dedicated to the genealogy, as well as the rich history
of the people and places from the whole of the County of Yorkshire. The scope of this list covers the pre-1974 county boundaries.
- The
ENG-TODMORDEN Mailing List is an unmoderated list, dedicated to the genealogy and history of Todmorden
which borders both Lancashire and Yorkshire.
- The
BRADFORD Mailing list is an unmoderated mailing list administered by Jan Perkins. We focus on the area that is covered by the present day Bradford
Postal Codes. BD 1-23. Skipton to the North, Tong to the east, Cleckheaton to the south and Keighley area to the west.
- The
HARROGATE mailing list is an unmoderated list for anyone with a genealogical interest in the present day Borough
of Harrogate, Yorkshire, England, which includes the towns of Harrogate, Knaresborough, Pateley Bridge, Nidderdale, Ripon, Masham and Boroughbridge.
- The
YORK mailing list is an unmoderated list administered by Lin Duke, for anyone with a genealogical interest in The Ainsty & City Of York, Yorkshire, England.
- There are also some other mailing lists that cover areas covered by the above, such as the border areas of Yorkshire/Lancashire
(
ENG-LANCS-YORKS).
- The
UPPER DALES GROUP mailing list is one of the Yahoo mailing lists and covers Swaledale and
Wensleydale, the most northerly of the Yorkshire dales and is administered by Peter Underwood and Ann Wilson.
- A list of all the mailing lists covering the counties of England and English subjects (under "General") can be found in
John Fuller's list of Mailing Lists.
- The following mailing lists are now inactive, but the contents can still be browsed or searched:
Halifax, Dewsbury, Doncaster, Leeds and Hull.
To browse or search these, go to the
list of indexes
and enter the relevant place name in the "Find a list" search box.
- For those new to Genealogy and Family History, Roy Stockdill has written a "
Newbies Guide". While this is written for the
West Riding of Yorkshire, most of the information will be of interest
to a far wider audience. This file should be read in conjunction with the Genuki "
Getting started" pages.
- There are some
additional Genealogical links (and some non-genealogical links such as
recipes) for Yorkshire on the Blunham home page.
- The YORKSGEN lectures and presentations took place in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 with occasional meets for
a meal. These presentations were primarily for subscribers to YORKSGEN, but anyone interested in Yorkshire genealogy was welcome
to attend. There are programmes of talks and visits, and opportunities to listen to experts on Yorkshire genealogy. The 2000 event was
organised by Conrad Plowman and Anne Harley to whom lots of thanks must go. Resulting from these events are quite a few
photographs (along with some sound files).
-
Genweb has a section for Yorkshire.
- Pat Johnson is providing a FREE lookup service of the names contained in her large collection of original
Family Deeds. Most of them relate to property and financial transactions
and may provide details which aren't available in the more usual sources of parish registers and Wills. Transcriptions of the
full documents are available for a modest fee, and the original deeds may also be available for purchase if required. A list
of Yorkshire places which are mentioned is provided onsite.
- Deanna Fowler has kindly made available scans and transcriptions of
4 different land deeds from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries,
3 from Yorkshire and the other of unknown origin. The scans can be downloaded in two different sizes and the translations are given.
- There are pages containing the
definitions of territorial terms such as Riding, Wapentake, parish etc.
- Originally posted to the Yorksgen mailing list, here are alphabetic lists of the
Owners of Land in the North Riding of Yorkshire in 1871.
- The late David Simpson transcribed an
indenture for the use of a Windmill at Pudsey. This is an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file.
- Roll of Honour of civilians killed by enemy action in the UK during World War II - listing of nearly
4000 entries
relating to Northumberland, Durham and Yorkshire.
-
The Yorkshire Regiment, - First World War Remembrance of members of the Regiment.
- Anji Mungham has provided a
LIST OF OFFICERS who have held commissions in the North York Militia
and the 4th Battalion (Alexandra, Princess of Wales' Own) Yorkshire Regiment, from 1758 to 1907.
- Names of 151
recipients of the Victoria Cross who are associated with North-East England
- Here are the
STANDING ORDERS for the 65th Regiment (of Foot). [Formed in 1758, later to become the Yorks Lancs]. transcribed by Walt Norris.
and a document detailing the recruits for
his Majesties 65th Foot commanded by Lieut. Genl. Edward Urmston.
These men were probably recruited to fight in the Amercan war of Independence, again transcribed by Walt Norris.
- The
Battle of Britain Historical Society maintains pages giving information on some of the pilots who were killed in during World War II.
-
Sir John Reresby's Militia Troop of 1623 raised from the Strafforth and Tickhill wapentake.
- The West Riding Muster Rolls for 1680,
Part 1 and
Part 2, transcribed by Denise Oyston.
-
"A key to English place names" provides an up-to-date guide to the interpretation of the names
of England's cities, towns and villages. This site uses the same pre 1974 county boundaries as this GENUKI site.
- Caroline Gaden has transcribed the entries for Public Officers of the
North Riding
and of the
East Riding from Whites Directory and Gazetteer of 1840.
- Colin Blanshard Withers has produced a list of all known Indexes and Calendars relating to Yorkshire Probate. This is available in both MS
Word format (.doc)
and
plain text format (.txt).
- The Find My Past network has indexes to a large number of Yorkshire wills in their
National Wills Index. Please note that this site requires a subscription to do searches.
-
The Northern Police Orphanage at St George's House, Otley Road, Harrogate looked after children of police families,
mostly from North-East England. It was founded by Catherine Gurney in 1898 and closed in 1956.
Where is it in Yorkshire? - A hyperlinked index to information on nearly all the places
in Yorkshire: cities, towns, villages, most of the hamlets and some single houses are included. The list also includes links
to information on some places which no longer exist.
There is also a large and detailed electronic map of the County. Please see also Maps above.
This county is maintained by Colin Hinson, with help and information provided by a great number
of people who are credited on the relevant pages.
This page is copyright. Do not copy any part of this page or website other than for personal
use or as given in the conditions of use.
If you have any suggestions for links to other sites that may be useful to other researchers,
please use this User Links page
Web-page generated by "DB2html" data-base extraction software ©Colin Hinson 2017