- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Meriden has been since 1974 a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands, England. It is located between Solihull and the city of Coventry, and is approximately 10 km (6.2 mi) from Birmingham International Airport.
Until 1974, Meriden was part of the Meriden Rural District in the county of Warwickshire. It was not absorbed into Solihull until that year. The surrounding countryside, known as the Meriden Gap, forms a green belt between the two urban areas of Birmingham and Coventry. In the United Kingdom Census 2001 the population of the Meriden parish was 2,734.
From 1941 until 1983, Meriden was home to the large Triumph motorcycles production plant, whose original Priory Street factory in Coventry was earlier destroyed by the Luftwaffe during World War II. The company was re-established in 1974 as Triumph Motorcycles Ltd and moved to Hinckley, Leicestershire in 1988.
The village has claimed to be at the very centre of England, and a sandstone pillar-shaped monument to that effect stands in the village green. This mediaeval village cross is a grade II listed artifact. In 2002, the Ordnance Survey defined the Geographical Centre of England to be on Lindley Hall Farm, approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) north of Meriden at Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire.
Research Tips
- GENUKI main page for Warwickshire provides information on various topics covering the whole of the county, and also a link to a list of parishes. Under each parish there is a list of the settlements within it and brief description of each. This is a list of pre-1834 ancient or ecclesiastical parishes but there are suggestions as to how to find parishes set up since then. GENUKI provides references to other organizations who hold genealogical information for the local area. There is no guarantee that the website has been kept up to date and therefore the reader should check additional sources if possible.
- Warwickshire and West Midland family history societies are listed in GENUKI.
- The FamilyTree Wiki has a series of pages similar to those provided by GENUKI which may have been prepared at a later date and from more recent data. The wiki has a link to English Jurisdictions 1851. There is a list of all the parishes in existence at that date with maps indicating their boundaries. The website is very useful for finding the ecclesiastical individual parishes within large cities and towns.
- A Vision of Britain through Time, Warwickshire, section "Units and Statistics" leads to analyses of population and organization of the county from about 1800 through 1974. There are pages available for all civil parishes, municipal boroughs and other administrative divisions. Descriptions provided are usually based on a gazetteer of 1870-72 which often provides brief notes on the economic basis of the settlement and significant occurences through its history.
- The two maps below indicate the boundaries between parishes, etc., but for a more detailed view of a specific area try a map from this selection. The oldest series are very clear at the third magnification offered. Comparing the map details with the GENUKI details for the same area is well worthwhile.
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- A map of the ancient divisions named "hundreds" is to be found in A Vision of Britain through Time. It shows the detached sections of Warwickshire as they were in 1832. These detached sections have now been moved into the counties that surrounded them.
- As of October 2016 Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1535-1984 are available to search online on FamilySearch
- As of September 2018 TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to its Warwickshire Parish Record Collection and so increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors baptisms, marriages and burials. These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area. These are available to Genealogist Diamond Subscription holders.
- The website British History Online provides seven volumes of the Victoria County History Series on Warwickshire. The first (Vol 2) covers the religious houses of the county; Volumes 3 through 6 provide articles the settlements in each of the hundreds in turn, and Volumes 7 and 8 deal with Birmingham and Coventry respectively. References to individual parishes will be furnished as time permits.
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