Place:Merston, Sussex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Merston is a village and former civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It lies just south of the A259 road 2.4 miles (3.9 km) southeast of Chichester. Since 1933 it has been part of the civil parish of Oving.

History

Merston was listed in the Domesday Book (1086) in the ancient hundred of Boxgrove as having 16 households, meadows, plough land and three mills. Later the hundred became known as Box and Stockbridge Hundred.

In 1861, Merston parish's population was 79, and the parish was measures at 710 acres (290 hectares).

Near the village was RAF Merston, a World War II airfield.

Research Tips

• The West Sussex Record Office is located in Chichester. Because it holds the records of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester, which covers the whole of Sussex, it has church records relating to both parts of Sussex.
• An on-line catalogue for some of the collections held by the West Sussex Record Office is available under the Access to Archives (A2A) project (a nationwide facility housed at The National Archives, Kew).
• West Sussex Past - database of 2 million records from West Sussex heritage organizations.
• The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies' Sussex Collection (PDF). This is a 9-page PDF naming the files relating to Sussex in their collection-a possible first step in a course of research.
• The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.

• GENUKI on Merston
• British History Online. A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 4, the Rape of Chichester, section on Merston
• Maps of the local area are to be found on pages for Box and Stockbridge Hundred and Chichester Rape. Chichester Harbour is a fairly landlocked, but tidal body of water. For parishes and towns to the west and south of Chichester, it is worthwhile inspecting "Google Earth" to see how the water table effects the land at low tide.