Place:Ormesby St. Margaret with Scratby, Norfolk, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

source: Family History Library Catalog

GENUKI states: Ormesby St Margaret is about 6 miles north-northwest of Great Yarmouth. It is also called Great Ormesby, and includes the hamlet of Scratby.

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ormesby St. Margaret with Scratby is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is made up of the inland village of Ormesby St Margaret and the adjacent seaside resorts of Scratby and California. The villages are some 1.2 mi (1.9 km) apart, and they are situated about 6.2 mi (10.0 km) north of the town of Great Yarmouth and 19 mi (31 km) east of the city of Norwich.

The civil parish has an area of 4.5 mi (7.2 km) and in the 2001 census had a population of 4,021 in 1,680 households, the population reducing to 3,974 at the 2011 UK census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the District of Great Yarmouth.

Ormesby St Margaret is a separate parish from the that of Ormesby St. Michael, which lies some 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.

California owes its name to the discovery of some 16th-century gold coins on the beach in 1848, at a time when the California gold rush had captured the attention of the world. Scratby and California are on the coast; Ormesby St. Margaret is inland from them.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Ormsby St. Margaret from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:

"ORMSBY-ST. MARGARET, or Great Ormsby, a village and a parish in Flegg [registration] district, Norfolk. The village stands about a mile from the sea, and 4¾ miles N by W of Yarmouth [railway] station; and has a post-office, of the name of Ormsby, under Great Yarmouth. The parish, together with Ormsby St. Michael and Scratby, comprises 2,761 acres; of which 75, in Ormsby St. Michael, are fore-shore. Real property of [Ormsby] St. Margaret and [Ormsby] St. Michael: £6,214. Population of [Ormsby] St. Margaret alone: 777. Houses: 169. The property is subdivided. Ormsby House is the seat of Sir. E. H. K. Lacon, Bart.; and is a handsome mansion, in the pointed style, amid well-wooded grounds. An old mansion, formerly the seat of the Cleres, is now a farm-house. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarages of Ormsby St. Michael and Scratby, in the diocese of Norwich. Value: £420. Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Norwich. The church is ancient; has a fine tower, surmounted by four figures of monks in lieu of pinnacles; and contains brasses and monuments of the Cleres, the Symondses, and the Earl of Home. There are chapels for Baptists, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists, a national school, and charities £60. Two churches, dedicated to the Holy Trinity and to St. Peter, formerly stood between the two Ormsbys, but are now extinct."

A Vision of Britain through Time also provides the following description of Scratby from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1871-72:

"SCRATBY, a parish in Flegg [registration] district, Norfolk; on the coast, 5¼ miles N by W of Yarmouth [railway] station. Post-town, Ormsby, under Great Yarmouth. Acres, returned with Ormsby. Real property: £1,505. Population in 1851: 177; in 1861: 309. Houses: 65. [Scratby] Hall was formerly the seat of the Earl of Home, and is now the seat of the Rev. R. Foster. A fishing village was recently formed at the cliff California. A life-boat station also was recently formed. The living is a vicarage, annexed to Ormsby, in the diocese of Norwich.

The two quotations above assert that there were associations between Ormesby St. Margaret and Scratby from at least 1870, but neither A Vision of Britain through Time nor Wikipedia state when they merged into one civil parish. Under "Units and Statistics", A Vision of Britain through Time classifies Scratby as a manor. William White's Gazetteer of 1845 provided by GENUKI (the most extensive of the three descriptions inspected), also considers Ormesby St. Margaret and Scratby to be one parish at that time. This gazetteer also refers to Ormsby St. Margaret; the current 'e' was added later.

Research Tips

• GENUKI provides a list of references for Ormesby St. Margaret. Some entries lead to free online transcriptions of registers and censuses.
• GENUKI also supplies a map illustrating the individual parishes of the Hundreds of East and West Flegg.
• GENUKI also advises that the following lists for Norfolk are to be found in FamilySearch:

• England, Norfolk, Parish Registers (County Record Office), 1510-1997
• England, Norfolk Archdeacon's Transcripts, 1600-1812
• England, Norfolk Bishop's Transcripts, 1685-1941
• England, Norfolk Marriage Bonds, 1557-1915
• England, Norfolk Non-conformist Records, 1613-1901

• Ancestry.co.uk has the following lists as of 2018 (UK or worldwide Ancestry membership or library access required). With the exception of the index to wills these files are browsible images of the original documents. The files are separated by type and broken down into time periods (i.e., "Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812" is more than one file). The general explanatory notes are worth reading for those unfamiliar with English parish records.

• Index to wills proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich : and now preserved in the District Probate Registry at Norwich
• Norfolk, England, Bishop's Transcripts, 1579-1935
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1990
• Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940

• FindMyPast is another pay site with large collection of parish records. As of October 2018 they had 20 types of Norfolk records available to browse including Land Tax Records and Electoral Registers.