Parish registers online
Over 600,000 Cheshire baptisms and marriages are included in the IGI at FamilySearch but not all parishes are included (you can see the coverage here). FamilySearch also has indexes to the records held by findmypast (see below).
Around 14 million records are in the Cheshire Collection at findmypast, including digitised images of the parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts for the historic county of Cheshire. The collection also includes non-conformist and Roman Catholic registers and registers for parishes in the modern boroughs of Halton (which includes Widnes and Runcorn) and Warrington. Apart from parish registers the collection includes wills proved at the Chester diocesan consistory court between 1492 and 1857, surviving workhouse registers from 1781-1910, and Electoral Registers from 1842-1900.
Ancestry has about 80,000 transcribed entries for Cheshire.
The volunteers of FreeREG have transcribed some of the registers for about 240 Cheshire parishes. There is no Online Parish Clerk project for Cheshire, but the Cheshire Parish Register Project has transcribed the registers for 27 parishes with several others in progress.
Births, marriages and deaths
Registration districts in Cheshire
Cheshire BMD has indexed over 3m births, 1.1m marriages, and 2.1m deaths
Pre-1841 censuses
Bebington 1838-56, Brereton 1767, Chester Eastgate 1641, Chester St Giles 1641, Chester St John 1587, 1598, 1612, 1620, 1641, 1642, 1644, 1670-76, Chester 1645-46, Church Hulme 1827, Eastham 1799-1826, Marbury 1801, Nether Alderley 1811, 1821, 1831, Over Alderley 1811, 1821, 1831, Rosthern 1821, Stockport (Handforth) 1831, Tattenhall 1831, Warburton 1831-34, 1839
Also consider....
Reproduced courtesy of Francis Frith.
Key Cheshire resources
Cheshire Archives & Local Studies is based in Chester. For details of the holdings click here.
Wirral Archives Service does not hold any parish registers, but there are many useful resources including Poor Law and Workhouse records, Quarter Sessions and County Court records, School and Hospital records, Tithe maps, and records of burials in municipal cemeteries. Wirral Archives also holds business records for local concerns most notably Cammell Laird Shipbuilders.
The Family History Society of Cheshire has 15 groups that meet in different parts of the county, and one that meets in Middlesex.
North Cheshire Family History Society meets in Sale and Hazel Grove. There is an online list of member's interests.
