Place:Ely St. Mary, Isle of Ely, England

Ely St. Mary along with Place:Ely Trinity, Isle of Ely, England were the two ancient parishes of the City of Ely. Ely St. Mary became a civil parish in 1866 and remained so until it came under the civil administration of the urban district of Ely in 1933. The two parishes held various portions of the area surrounding Ely College, the central area including the cathedral. The distribution is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of Cambridgeshire of 1900.

Ely is now in the East Cambridgeshire District of Cambridgeshire, England. Chettisham, described below, waa a settlement in a part of St. Mary parish to the north of Ely Cathedral. Prickwillow and Stuntney were settlements to the east and the south respectively. Both are described in Wikipedia.

Chettisham

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"CHETTISHAM, or Chittisham, a chapelry in Ely-St. Mary parish, Cambridge; on the Ely and Peterborough railway, 2½ miles N of Ely. It has a station on the railway; and its post town is Ely. Statistics returned with the parish. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese [of] Ely. Value: £65. Patrons: the Dean and Chapter of Ely."

Wikipedia has a more modern description:

"Chettisham is a small village in the East Cambridgeshire District between Ely and Littleport. The main claim to fame is the level crossing along the A10 road, the few houses in the layby and the old signal box where there was once a Chettisham railway station on the line between Ely and March." Co-ordinates: 52.42°N 0.27°E

Research tips

• Original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are now held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies at Shire Hall, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 4GS
• The Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Family History Society has transcribed the parish registers for many if not all the ancient parishes of Cambridgeshire and these can be purchased from the Society as separate pdfs.
• A History of the County of Cambridge. Seven volumes from British History Online (Victoria County Histories). This is by far the most complete history of the parishes of the county to be found online. From the numbering it would appear that some parts of the county are yet to be published online, but the first two volumes for any county are of little interest to the genealogist. The chapters are ordered by the divisions of the county called hundreds, but each parish is listed in the volume's content page.

• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3, the City (Cambridge) and University of Cambridge (published 1959)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4, City of Ely; North Ely and South Ely, Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (the cathedral city and liberty of Ely and the rural areas to the west and northwest, including the port of Wisbech) (published 2002)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 5, the Hundreds of Longstowe and Wetherley, west of Cambridge (published 1973)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 6, the three Hundreds of Chilford, Radfield and Whittlesford (in the south of the county, on the border with Essex) (published 1978)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 8, Armingford and Thriplow Hundreds (south and west of Cambridge) (published 1982)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 9, Chesterton, Northstowe, and Papworth Hundreds (the suburban and rural areas to the north and northwest of Cambridge) (published 1989)
• A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (northeastern Cambridgeshire) (published 2002)

• GENUKI has a page on Cambridgeshire and pages for each of the ecclesiastical or ancient parishes in the county. These give references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. Each parish page includes a map of the parish provided by Open Street Maps.
• The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date.
• A Vision of Britain through Time, section "Units and Statistics" for each parish and borough leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974.
• Map of Cambridgeshire divisions in 1888 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time
• Map of Cambridge divisions in 1944 produced by UK Ordnance Survey and provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time