Records

As more records are transcribed hopefully that this will be a useful section of the site.  For now you can find selected monumental Inscriptions from the churchyard, as well as a transcripts of the census returns from 1841 until 1911.

The parish records showing Baptisms, marriage and burials are in the process of being transcribed and have been be added to the site.  The Cheshire Collection at the Cheshire Record Office holds all the records and are freely available at any library in Warrington and Cheshire.  If you want to see any of the records of baptisms, marriage and deaths from St. Matthews Church, please do contact me (Clare.Olver@gmail.com) and I’ll get back to you.

A fascinating insight into the owners and occupiers of the village in 1846 is found in the 1846 tithes apportionment, particularly if used with the maps on the Cheshire Archives website.

Coming forward a hundred or so years, I have acquired and transcribed the entries of the Electors’ Register  from 1847 until 1974.  Electoral registers are a list of people entitled to vote at elections. The earliest registers date from 1832 although there were no registers compiled between 1916 and 1917 and between 1940 and 1944.

 

The registers do not include details of everyone  – in 1832 only one in seven of the male population was eligible to vote. That right depended upon the value of property rented or owned. By 1884 about two thirds of the male population had the vote but women over 30 were not entitled to vote in Parliamentary elections until 1918. It wasn’t until ten years later that all adults over the age of 21 had the right to vote, and in 1969 that was reduced to 18 years or older.

If you would like to more information about who was living in your house at a particular date, or where an ancestor lived, please feel to get in touch.