David Wright - Tracing Your Kent Ancestors: A Guide for Family & Local Historians

FAMILY HISTORY FROM PEN & SWORD

Tracing Secret Service Ancestors

Tracing Your Air Force Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors

Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Death Records

Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs

Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census

Tracing Your Ancestors Childhood

Tracing Your Ancestors Parish Records

Tracing Your Aristocratic Ancestors

Tracing Your Army Ancestors 2nd Edition

Tracing Your Birmingham Ancestors

Tracing Your Black Country Ancestors

Tracing Your British Indian Ancestors

Tracing Your Canal Ancestors

Tracing Your Channel Islands Ancestors

Tracing Your Coalmining Ancestors

Tracing Your Criminal Ancestors

Tracing Your East Anglian Ancestors

Tracing Your East End Ancestors

Tracing Your Edinburgh Ancestors

Tracing Your First World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Gallipoli Campaign

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: The Somme

Tracing Your Great War Ancestors: Ypres

Tracing Your Huguenot Ancestors

Tracing Your Jewish Ancestors

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors

Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors

Tracing Your Leeds Ancestors

Tracing Your Legal Ancestors

Tracing Your Liverpool Ancestors

Tracing Your London Ancestors

Tracing Your Medical Ancestors

Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors

Tracing Your Naval Ancestors

Tracing Your Northern Ancestors

Tracing Your Pauper Ancestors

Tracing Your Police Ancestors

Tracing Your Prisoner of War Ancestors: The First World War

Tracing Your Railway Ancestors

Tracing Your Royal Marine Ancestors

Tracing Your Rural Ancestors

Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors

Tracing Your Second World War Ancestors

Tracing Your Servant Ancestors

Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors

Tracing Your Shipbuilding Ancestors

Tracing Your Tank Ancestors

Tracing Your Textile Ancestors

Tracing Your Trade and Craftsmen Ancestors

Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors

Tracing Your West Country Ancestors

Tracing Your Yorkshire Ancestors

First published in Great Britain in 2016
PEN & SWORD FAMILY HISTORY
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street,
Barnsley
South Yorkshire,
S70 2AS

Copyright David Wright, 2016

ISBN: 978 1 47383 802 4
Paperback ISBN: 978 1 47383 345 6
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 525 8
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 524 1
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 523 4

The right of David Wright to be identified as Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in Palatino and Optima by CHIC GRAPHICS

Printed and bound in England by
CPI Group (UK), Croydon, CR0 4YY

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Social History, Transport, True Crime, Claymore Press, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Wharncliffe.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LTD
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail:
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

CONTENTS

PREFACE

If your ancestors originated in the ancient, fascinating and diverse county of Kent, you will be well served by its large and rich collections of historical documents; for this county, along with the rest of the country, has not been invaded since 1066, and so its archives still retain many documents dating back a thousand years and more, along with great quantities of other items from its borough collections and 400 or so ancient parishes. Some of the earliest genealogical pioneers were Kentish and so you may consequently enjoy consulting many of the countys important indexes in the course of extending your pedigree.

The three principal archives are at Canterbury, Maidstone and Rochester, but north-west Kent also has several local archive centres, and family history societies and groups are evenly spread throughout the county offering help, advice, talks and lectures. Further afield, but easily accessible, the London Metropolitan Archives holds much material relating to those parts of north-western Kent now within Greater London, while The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) at Kew offers the researcher almost unlimited riches in all aspects of genealogy, perhaps most especially for the mediaeval period where some sets of records survive in unbroken sequences for nearly 800 years. Details of all of these sources can be found in the Directory at the back of the book. I have been working in archives in Kent and London for nearly forty years, and have had the pleasure of handling a great many different types of records over that long period. If you are a beginner, I give a broad overview of the great wealth of material available in archives in both Kent and London from early mediaeval charters to modern electoral registers.

But no matter what experience you have under your belt, do first read the chapter on preliminaries and remind yourself that this fascinating hobby is not an easy one to get right: to err is human, and I certainly made lots of mistakes when first setting out on the long and never-quite-complete journey of researching my family tree. If you avoid some of the traps that I fell into, then this book will have proved its worth.

David Wright,
November 2015

Ash (by Sandwich): a large church in an enormous parish. Perhaps thirty or more generations of many local families lie buried here. (Copyright Neil Anthony)

ABBREVIATIONS