Place:Willersey, Gloucestershire, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Willersey is a village and civil parish now in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England, close by the border with Worcestershire (to the west). Willersey is an industrial and farming village with a population of over 800 in the 2011 UK census. The village is about 8 miles east of Evesham, and near the village of Weston-Subedge.

Willersey was part of the Pebworth Rural District from 1894 until 1931 when the rural district was broken up. Pebworth RD was made up of four detached parts with parishes in Worcestershire in between them. In the reorganization, some of the parishes were transferred to Worcestershire, but Willersey and three other parishes were transferred to Campden Rural District.

In a more wide-reaching Gloucestershire reorganization of 1935, Campden RD was disbanded and all its parishes were transferred to the newly-formed and much larger North Cotswold Rural District.

Research Tips

• Gloucestershire Archives in Gloucester is where paper and microfilm copies of all records for parishes now in Gloucestershire are stored.
• Worcestershire County Council:Archives and Archaeology is where paper and microfilm copies of all records for parishes now in Worcestershire are stored.

Online sources which may also be helpful:

• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish in the county. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Gloucestershire and The FamilySearch Wiki for Worcestershire provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in both counties
• Unfortunately, only two of the Pebworth Rural District parishes are covered by A History of the County of Gloucester in the Victoria County History series provided by the website British History Online. There does not appear to be a series for Worcestershire.
• Comparing a map of Gloucestershire parishes in 1900 with a map of Gloucestershire parishes made in the 1943 helps to illustrate how the county borders changed through this period. A very helpful diagrammatic map will be found on the Pebworth Rural District page.
• Ancestry.co.uk has recently added Gloucestershire Burials, 1813-1988; Confirmations, 1834-1913; Baptisms, 1813-1913; Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1813; and Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938. (entry dated 1 Aug 2015)