Family History

Barthomley Parish Records 1562 – 1908

The registration of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials in England & Wales was compulsory from 1545. Records for Barthomley exist from 1562, although there are gaps in the lists for various reasons. Most noticeably, the records for the Civil War period are missing and there are no records of those killed in the ‘Barthomley Massacre’.

Historically, Barthomley was much larger than it is now and encompassed the area covered by Balterley, Alsager, Haslington & Crewe. Some of the parishes created during these 350 years kept their own records. Nevertheless, Barthomley retained the records for much of this area and these handwritten documents were stored in the church until the 1990s. It was realised that the records were deteriorating and a group of 25+ people from Barthomley and neighbouring parishes transcribed the information into an Access (Microsoft) database of all the church records. This process took more than six years

The originals are now in the Diocesan Records Office in Chester. The transcribed data was indexed and published by the Audley & District Family History Society in 1998. This document is held as a Word (Microsoft) file and is available as a chargeable download from them.

The same data has now been installed in the three databases listed above on this website and individual records can be accessed by surname. There is a total of more than 18,000 records and we are grateful to ADFHS for providing us with the Access disc and allowing us to use it here.

Further information about the Audley & District Family History Society and access to a printed copy of the Parish Records databases can be found here on their website. The books identifiers are:

ISBN 0 9529494 3 1

ISBN 0 9529494 1 5