Place:Thurnham (near Lancaster), Lancashire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Thurnham (#18 on the map) is a civil parish in Lancashire, England. It is situated on the south side of the River Lune estuary in the non-metropolitan borough named the City of Lancaster, and contains the villages of Conder Green, Glasson Dock (or, simply, Glasson), Lower Thurnham and Upper Thurnham (all of which are re-directed here). The parish had a population of 651, according to the UK census of 2011. Thurnham is where the River Conder flows into the Lune. The main road through the parish is the A588. It was formerly served by the London and North Western Railway's Glasson Dock Branch railway line, which had three stations in the parish: one at Conder Green, the terminus at Glasson Dock and a private halt at Ashton Hall. To the east of the village stands Thurnham Hall, a 17th-century country house converted to a resort hotel. It was originally the residence of John Pierce Chamberlain Starkie (1830-1888). end of Wikipedia contribution Prior to the nationwide reorganization of municipal government in 1974, Thurnham was a civil parish in Lancaster Rural District. In the 19th century and earlier, it was a township in the ancient parish of Cockerham.

Cockersand Abbey

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

Cockersand Abbey is a former abbey near Cockerham in the City of Lancaster district of Lancashire, England. It was founded before 1184 as the Hospital of St Mary on the marsh belonging to Leicester Abbey. It was refounded by the Cambro-Norman magnate, Theobald Walter, 1st Baron Butler as a Premonstratensian priory. It was subsequently elevated to an abbey in 1192. It also continued as a hospital.

The abbey was dissolved in 1539 and acquired by a John Kitchen. The site is now adjacent to a farm house and the only significant relic is the still intact, vaulted chapter house which was built in 1230 and used as a family mausoleum by the Daltons of Thurnham Hall during the 18th and 19th centuries. Some scrappy remains of the church are adjacent.

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.
• 101-105 A description of the parish of Thurnham from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914