Dudley St Thomas, Worcestershire Genealogy

England

Worcestershire

Worcestershire Parishes

Dudley St Thomas

Guide to Dudley St Thomas, Worcestershire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Dudley St Thomas, Worcestershire
Type	Ancient parish
Civil Jurisdictions
Hundred	Halfshire
County	Worcestershire, England Genealogy
Poor Law Union	Dudley
Registration District	Dudley
Records begin
Parish registers: 1541
Bishop's Transcripts: 1613
Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions
Rural Deanery	Kidderminster
Diocese	Worcester
Province	Canterbury
Legal Jurisdictions
Probate Court	Court of the Bishop of Worcester (Episcopal Consistory)
Location of Archive
Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service

Parish History

Dudley St Thomas is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Worcestershire. Other places in the parish include: Darby-end.

Dudley formerly comprised the parishes of St. Thomas and St. Edmund, now united, the church of the former being parochial. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 18. 6½.; net income, £1000; patron and impropriator, Lord Ward: the tithes were commuted for land and money payments in 1784. The church was rebuilt in 1819, at an expense of £23,000, of which sum, £7600, including £2000 contributed by the Earl of Dudley, were raised by subscription, and the remainder by a rate; it is a handsome structure in the later English style, with an elegant and lofty spire, and from its elevated situation forms a fine feature in the landscape. The church of St. Edmund, at the lower extremity of the town, having been demolished during the parliamentary war, was rebuilt, chiefly at the expense of two brothers of the name of Bradley, assisted by a subscription among the parishioners, about the commencement of the last century; it is now a district church, in the gift of the Vicar, with a net income of £200 a year. Churches at Evehill and Freebodies, in the parish, have been built on sites given by Lord Ward's trustees, by subscription, aided by a grant of £1000 from the Incorporated Society; they are neat edifices, and contain 1500 free sittings; the living of each is in the gift of the Vicar, and has an income of £200. A church has also been erected at Netherton, upon a site presented by the Earl of Dudley, who died in 1833; it is dedicated to St. Andrew: the income is £220, and the Vicar presents to this living also. There are places of worship for Primitive, Kilhamite, and Wesleyan Methodists, for Baptists, the Society of Friends, Independents, Roman Catholics, and Unitarians.

From: 'Duddon - Duncton', Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 96-102. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50929 Date accessed: 24 March 2011.

Known locally as the "Top Church" due to its position at the top of Dudley High Street.

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.

See West Midlands BMD and Staffordshire BMD

Church records

Dudley St Thomas parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

FREG = FreeREG - free

DUDLEY ST THOMAS PARISH (1538) Online Records
	Baptisms		Marriages		Burials
	Indexes	Images	Indexes	Images	Indexes	Images
FREG	1729, 1794-1858		1808-1850		1795-1871, 1876-1884, 1891-1904

To search for the Dudley records inputted by Staffordshire FreeREG - select County as Staffordshire and for Place select Dudley Staffs. Although most of Dudley is within Worcestershire - many of it's records are for people living in the surrounding Staffordshire Parishes. The Parish itself was always completely surrounded by Staffordshire and has been incorporated with other Staffordshire Parishes for Civil Registration purposes since 1837. The above years include records transcribed by both Worcestershire and Staffordshire FREG. It is advisable to search both counties for this parish.

Dudley Archives has deposited Parish registers Bap 1541-1972 Marr 1541-1981 Bur 1541-1926

Darby End St Peter was formed from this parish

Darby End; Dudley Archives has deposited Parish registers Bap 1913-1977 Marr none Bur none For earlier years refer to mother parish of St Thomas

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

Dudley Poor Law Union, Staffordshire Genealogy

Probate records

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

Websites

Worcester Branch of the Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry

Dudley Non Coformists

Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.