Whitechapel, Lancashire Genealogy

England Genealogy Lancashire, England Genealogy Lancashire Parishes

Whitechapel St James

Chapelry History

Whitechapel St James was created anciently as a chapel of ease (at least from) 1717, lying within Kirkham, Lancashire Genealogy Ancient Parish.

Whitechapel is a tiny hamlet in the civil parish of Goosnargh in Lancashire, England. It lies on the border of the Forest of Bowland near the foot of Beacon Fell, and close to the neighbouring village of Inglewhite. Its name is marked as White Chapel on some maps.

The area was known as "Threlfall" in the Domesday Book. A tiny 27×13-foot private chapel was built for the Threlfall family in Elizabethan times, and was rebuilt as St James' Church about 1738. The churchyard contains a sundial dated 1745 which is a Grade II listed building.

The name "Whitechapel" came into use in the early nineteenth century, named after the church. It was originally a part of Goosnargh ecclesiastical parish, but acquired independent parish status in 1846.

The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created in 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The Diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, and the cities of Lancaster, and Preston, as well as a large part of the Ribble Valley.

"WHITECHAPEL, a chapelry in Kirkham parish, Lancashire; 5 miles SSE of Garstang r. station. It was constituted in 1846.
 

Resources

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.

Online index of Lancashire Births, Marriages and Deaths Lancashire BMD

Lancashire Online Parish Clerks

An extremely useful resource for research in Lancashire Parishes http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/

Church records

Online Records

Church of England

Whitechapel chapelry's registers of christenings, marriages and burials, along with those of the ancient parish of Kirkham to which it is attached, have been mostly transcribed and are displayed online at the following web sites and ranges of years:

FS = FamilySearch.org

LOPC = Lancashire Online Parish Clerk project

FMP = FindMyPast.co.uk

LBMD = LancashireBMD.org.uk

AC = Ancestry.co.uk

FREG = FreeReg

WHITECHAPEL ST JAMES Chapelry (1819) Indexes
	Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
FS	1820-1872	None	None
LOPC	1818-1838	1854-1949	1818-1900
LBMD	None	1854-2004	None
KIRKHAM ST MICHAEL'S PARISH (1539) Indexes (ancient parish containing WHITECHAPEL Chapelry)
	Baptisms	Marriages	Burials
FS	1540-1653; 1868-1896	1539-1653;1868-1874	None
LOPC	1678-1932	1539-1653;1678-1875	1678-1775; 1834-1932
FMP	None	1539-1837	None
LBMD	1837-1974	1837-2010	1837-1975
AC	1539-1653	1539-1653	1539-1653

For a full list of all those chapels surrounding Whitechapel and comprising the whole ancient parish of Kirkham to which it was attached, be certain to see "Church Records" on the KIRKHAM ST MICHAEL PARISH page.

Census records

Census records from 1841 to 1911 are available online. For access, see England Census. Census records from 1841 to 1891 are also available on film through a Family History Center or at the Family History Library.

Poor Law Unions

Fylde Poor Law Union, Lancashire

Probate records

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