Place:North Ockendon, Essex, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

North Ockendon is an outlying settlement of northeast London, England and part of the London Borough of Havering. It is located 18 miles (29 km) east northeast of Charing Cross (a point in London used for measuring distance from the centre) and consists of a dispersed settlement within the Metropolitan Green Belt. Until 1936 it was an ancient parish in the county of Essex when it was abolished for civil purposes.

During the period 1894-1936, North Ockendon formed a parish in the Orsett Rural District of Essex. The majority of its former area was used to enlarge the Cranham parish of Hornchurch Urban District and the remainder of the former parish, around 383 acres (1.55 km2), was used to form part of Thurrock Urban District in 1936.

In 1965 Hornchurch Urban District was abolished and its former area, including North Ockendon, was transferred to Greater London and used to form the present-day London Borough of Havering. North Ockendon and Great Warley were to the east of the M25 motorway when it was constructed [after 1965]. In 1992 it was proposed that the part of Greater London to the east of the M25 should be transferred to Essex, with the Great Warley section north of the railway transferred to Brentwood and the North Ockendon section to the south transferred to [[Place:Thurrock (district), Essex, England|Thurrock. The transfer of North Ockendon from London to Essex was strongly opposed locally. Following the review the Great Warley section was transferred to Essex, but the North Ockendon part was not, leaving it the only part of Greater London to be outside the M25 motorway.

Research Tips

• The Thurrock Local History Society provides an Ordnance Survey map which illustrates the area of Essex covered by Thurrock.
• Essex Record Office handles Essex archives within the county. The address is Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6YT.
• The Essex Society for Family History covers topics of genealogical interest throughout the present County of Essex (i.e. excluding the western area now in Greater London). Subscription necessary.
• GENUKI provides a list of towns and parishes leading to pages for individual parishes with useful local information for genealogists and family historians.
• Wikimedia Commons has a set of maps of the old hundreds of Essex. These do not show the individual parishes within the hundreds.
• For very detailed investigation Wikimedia Commons also has a series of 176 part maps of the Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10560, Map of Essex
• FamilySearch lists its collections of church records and vital records along with those provided by other organizations, both commercial and voluntary.
• The commercial website FindMyPast also has a collection of wills and newspaper transcriptions, as well as the "1939 Register" (an equivalent to the census gathered at the beginning of World War 2).
• A Vision of Britain through Time is a website produced by the Department of Geography of the University of Portsmouth. It outlines all parishes as they were in the 19th century.
• British History Online has transcribed eight volumes of the Victoria County History project for Essex. Seven of these cover the history of parts of the county in great detail, although the project is incomplete for Essex as a whole. Ownership of land through the centuries can often be traced here. The volumes of note are as follows:

Volume 4, Ongar Hundred, including Chipping and High Ongar, Chigwell, Stondon Massey and Theydon Bois (26 parishes in all).

Volume 5, Becontree Hundred outside Greater London. A thematic account of the growth of metropolitan Essex since 1850. Also contains topographical accounts of Barking, Ilford, Dagenham and other areas of Essex now within Greater London.

Volume 6, parishes of Becontree Hundred now within the London boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge. These include West and East Ham, Walthamstow and Wanstead.

Volume 7, Covers the ancient parishes, formerly within the Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower and now within the London borough of Havering, and those in Chafford hundred in western Essex now bordering London. It includes accounts of Hornchurch, Romford, Havering.

Volume 8, accounts of the parishes of Chafford and Harlow Hundreds, including Brentwood, Harlow and Thurrock.

Volume 9, the Borough of Colchester, describes the life of the oldest and for long the largest town in Essex from the Iron Age to 1990.

Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (part), includes Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe and other parishes to the north and west of Colchester.

• As of June 2019 Ancestry (Worldwide subscription required) includes Essex, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812, these early records are from parish registers of baptisms and burials during the years 1538–1812, and marriages during the years 1538-1754. These are in addition to their previous holdings:

• Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1918: 3,937,941 records
• Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1935: 1,968,439 records
• Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1994: 730,118 records