Place:Ruckinge, Kent, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Ruckinge is a village and civil parish in south Kent centred 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Ashford on the B2067 Hamstreet to Hythe road, with two settled neighbourhoods. It is, broadly defined, a narrow, fairly large rural parish of land which is about one quarter woodland.

Ruckinge's main neighbourhood is a linear settlement with a few cul de sacs. It is in the mid-south of a civil parish which also includes the scattered community of Bromley Green which has about half of the area's woodland. The two halves (Upper and Lower or North and South) are split by a belt of woodland but a road links them, with the other roads being two east-west and two to the north-east and north-west. A source of the fast-flowing, steep headwaters of the East Stour rises a mile west of the northern half of the parish in an area of Sandstone hills. In terms of vegetation patchy remains are preserved here of The Weald, the forest between the Greensand Ridge and the South Downs, and to the south of the Royal Military Canal]] the area has long been grassed, being just above marsh level since the Roman Britain period.

Ruckinge was originally an ancient parish in Ham Hundred and also in the Newchurch Hundred and the Romney Marsh Liberty. Between 1894 and 1974 it was part of the East Ashford Rural District. Since 1974 the area is covered by the non-metropolitan Ashford District.

Research Tips

• Kent County Council Archive, Local Studies and Museums Service. James Whatman Way, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LQ. This incorporates the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone and the East Kent Archives Centre near Dover.
• Canterbury Cathedral Archives see the Archives web pages on the Canterbury Catherdral site.
• For information on the area around the Medway Towns, have a look at Medway Council's CityArk site.
• Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Kent illustrates the parish boundaries of Kent when rural districts were still in existence and before Greater London came into being. The map publication year is 1931. An earlier map of 1900 may also be useful. The maps blow up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
• Census records for Kent are available on FamilySearch, Ancestry and FindMyPast. The first site is free; the other two are pay sites but have access to microfilmed images. Steve Archer produced a very useful round-up of the available sources, but this information may not be up to date.
• Registration Districts in Kent for the period 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.
• England, Kent, Parish Registers, 1538-1911 The full database from Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, has been available online from FamilySearch since June 2016.
• Kent had five family history societies (now only four):

• Kent FHS (serves the whole county)
• Folkestone & District FHS (serves the southeast corner)
• North West Kent FHS (serves the western area of present-day Kent)
• Tunbridge Wells FHS (ceased operation 31 Dec 2016; see North West Kent)
• Woolwich & District FHS (serves eastern sections of Greater London which were in Kent until 1966)

• Volume 2 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1926) is available online through the auspices of British History Online. It includes accounts of the early history of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals, and of several sites now within the conurbation of London.
• Volume 3 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1932) This includes the text of, and the index to, the Kent Domesday survey. It has been provided by the Kent Archaeological Society.
• In place of the other volumes of the Victoria County History, British History Online has transcriptions of the numerous volumes of The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent by Edward Hasted (originally published 1797)
• English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, is particularly helpful in locating parishes in large ancient towns and cities like Canterbury.
• Kent Probate Records Numerous links provided by Maureen Rawson
• GENUKI lists other possible sources, however, it does not serve Kent so well as it does some other counties.