England, Manchester, Parish Registers, 1603-1954
This collection covers records from the Diocese of Manchester held by the Manchester Archives and Local Studies. The parishes are mainly from the historic county of Lancashire, with a few parishes from Cheshire and Yorkshire. Parish registers contain births, christenings, burials, marriages, and mixed church records.
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England, Manchester, Parish Registers
What is in This Collection?
This collection contains an index to and images of baptism, marriage, and burial records from the Diocese of Manchester for the years 1603-1910. The records are held at the Manchester Archives. The parishes are mainly from the historic county of Lancashire, with a few parishes from Cheshire and Yorkshire.
For most of the period of this collection, the area around Manchester fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Diocese of Chester, but in 1847, the Diocese of Manchester was created. With the creation of this new diocese, many parish boundaries changed. To learn more about these changes, see the Cheshire Parishes and Lancashire Parishes pages, as well as the England Jurisdictions 1851 page. The Manchester Collegiate Church page also offers insight into the jurisdiction of the area.
Parish registers have been kept at the local level across England since the mid-1500s. Due to this long and relatively stable tradition, these records are central to English genealogical research as they are often one of the only sources for finding families and individuals in England before the start of civil registration in 1837.
| Non-Lancashire parishes included in the collection | |
|---|---|
| Parish name | Notes |
| Staleybridge, St Paul, Cheshire | Town built on both sides of the River Tame, the historical boundary between Lancashire and Cheshire. Stalybridge Old St George and Stalybridge New St George are on the Lancashire side. |
| Dobcross, Holy Trinity, Yorkshire | Created in 1797 from the ancient parish of Rochdale part of the West Riding of Yorkshire Parishes |
| Lydgate, St Anne, Yorkshire | A chapelry in the parochial chapelry of Saddleworth, both of which were in the ancient parish of Rochdale, Lancashire |
| Saddleworth, St Chad, Yorkshire | Saddleworth lies on the very western edge of Yorkshire, alongside the Lancashire border. In many ways it is physically separated from the rest of Yorkshire by the Pennine range which form the parish's eastern border |
| Saddleworth, St Thomas, Yorkshire | |
Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.
To Browse This Collection
| You can browse through images in this collection using the waypoints on the Collection Browse Page for England, Manchester, Parish Registers, 1603-1910. |
What Can These Records Tell Me?
The following information may be found in these records:
|
Christening
|
Marriage
|
Burial
|
Collection Content
For additional details about these records and help using them see England Parish Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records
Sample Images
1794-5 Baptisms
1729-30 Marriages
1810 Burials
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Collection Details
Location of Original Records
Manchester City Council - Archives and Local History
"England, Manchester, Parish Registers, 1603-1954." Database with images. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 6 January 2026. Citing Church of England. Archives Central Library, Manchester.
