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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Melling with Wrayton (#12 on the map) is a civil parish since 1974 in the City of Lancaster Borough of Lancashire, England. It includes the village of Melling and the hamlet of Wrayton, to the northeast. The parish had a population of 290 recorded in the 2001 census. Prior to 1974 Melling with Wrayton was a civil parish within Lunesdale Rural District.
Melling is the centre of a cluster of sites along the Lune Valley – the densest distribution of Norman castles outside of the Welsh border countryside. It was a ancient parish and had a number of townships and chapelries as listed by Wilson in his Gazetteer.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Melling-with-Wrayton from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "MELLING, a village, a township, and a parish in the district and county of Lancaster. The village stands near the Furness and Midland railway, 2 miles NNE of Hornby; and has a [railway] station. The township bears the name of Melling and Wrayton, and comprises 1,120 acres. Real property: £1,618. Population: 169. Houses: 35.
- "The parish contains also the township of Hornby, which has a post office under Lancaster, and the townships of Farleton, Roeburndale, Wennington, Wray-with-Botton, and Arkholme-with-Cawood. Acres: 23,474. Real property: £18,046; of which £40 are in mines, and £60 in quarries. Population in 1851: 2,204; in 1861: 2,013. Houses: 393. The property is subdivided. Much of the land, with Hornby Castle, belongs to John Foster, Esq. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Manchester. Value, £145. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church is early perpendicular English; includes a chantry at the E end of the S aisle; has ten stained-glass windows; and was repaired in 1855. The chapelries of Hornby, Arkholme, and Wray are separate benefices. Chapels for Wesleyans and United Free Methodists are in Wray; a Roman Catholic chapel is in Hornby; and a slightly endowed school and charities £67 are in Melling."
A map of a wider area will be found at the page for Lancaster Borough.
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Research Tips
- See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
- Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
- Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
- Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
- FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
- Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
- A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
- A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
- GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
- The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
- A description of the township of Melling with Wrayton from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914
- A description of the parish of Melling from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914
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