Place:Hampreston, Dorset, England

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

Before 1972 Hampreston was a civil parish immediately north of Poole in Dorset, England. The parish included the communities of Ferndown (a fair-sized town), Hampreston, Longham, Stapehill and Trickett's Cross. Since 1972 the civil parish has been renamed Ferndown and is located in the East Dorset District.

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of the parish of Hampreston from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:

"HAMPRESTON, a parish in the [registration] district of Wimborne, and counties of Dorset and [Hampshire]; on the river Stour, near the Southampton and Dorchester railway, 3¼ miles ESE of Wimborne Minster. It includes the hamlet of Longham, which has a post office under Wimborne. Acres: 4,948. Real property: £,260. Population [of the Hampshire portion?]: 341. Houses: 295. Population of the Dorset portion: 1,115. Houses: 246. The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged to Ainlfus, the Conqueror's chamberlain. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value: £282. Patrons, the Rev. H. T. Glyn and others. The church is early and later English; and was enlarged in the early part of the present century. There are two dissenting chapels, a Roman Catholic convent, two national schools, and charities £50."

The A Vision of Britain through Time database states that Hampreston was wholly in Dorset after 1860.

Ferndown

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

Ferndown is a town and civil parish in the East Dorset district of Dorset in southern England, situated immediately to the north of unitary authority of Poole. The parish, which until 1972 was called Hampreston, includes the communities of Hampreston, Longham, Stapehill and Trickett's Cross. The latest population figure (according to the 2011 UK census) for the parish is 26,559.

Research Tips

• GENUKI has a list of archive holders in Hampshire including the Hampshire Record Office, various museums in Portsmouth and Southhampton, the Isle of Wight Record Office and Archives.
• The Hampshire Online Parish Clerk project has a large collection of transcriptions from Parish Registers across Hampshire.
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 together with tables listing the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered, along with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. Do respect the copyright on this material.
• The three-storey City Museum in Winchester covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period.
• Volumes in The Victoria County History Series are available for Hampshire through British History Online. There are three volumes and the county is covered by parishes within the old divisions of "hundreds".

A collection of maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrating the English county of Hampshire over the period 1832-1932 (the last two are expandible):

• The Hundreds of Hampshire, a map from HMSO Boundary Commissioners, dated 1832
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts as of 1900, a map from the Ordnance Survey
• Hampshire showing parishes in their Rural Districts after the alterations of 1932, a map from the Ordnance Survey

• A group of maps of the post-1974 municipal districts or boroughs of Hampshire on Wikipedia Commons

Dorset Research Tips

One of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish).

The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.

• Repository:Dorset History Centre
• Repository:Dorset Online Parish Clerks (free online transcriptions for many parishes)
• Repository:UK Genealogy Archives
• Repository:Dorset Family History Society (England)
• Repository:Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
• Repository:Dorset Genealogy Resources
• Repository:FreeBMD.org.uk for the GRO civil registration index
• Repository:FreeCEN - UK Census Online Project
• Repository:FreeREG - UK parish register indexes

• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Dorset, but it has left the 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes to UK Genealogy Archives which presents facts differently. Neither GENUKI or UK Genealogy Archives deal with the more modern civil parishes.
• FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date, but UK Genealogy Archives may prove more helpful.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts up to 1974
2. excerpts from gazetteers of the late 19th century outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• The contents of the Victoria County History is provided by British History Online for many English counties, but not for Dorset. Instead they have provided the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England (RCHME Inventory Volumes) published in 1972 in five volumes covering the county in geographical areas. Thes articles describe buildings rather than towns and villages, but may be of use in researching a manor-owning family.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

Censuses

UK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index).

The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish.

The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.

• The question "where born" was to be answered either with the words "in county" (or "y") or "out of county" (or "n") with perhaps a more specific place in the case of those born abroad.
• Ages for adults (usually those over 15, though some enumerators gave specific ages up to 20) were rounded down to the nearest 5 years. (i.e., for persons aged 15 years and under 20 write 15; 20 years and under 25 write 20; 25 years and under 30 write 25; and so on up to the eldest interval.

From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).