You can now display 200 or 500 search results per page; previously the maximum number of results displayed was 50. This allows you to scroll up and down to compare various entries in the search results list, instead of having to page back and forth as much. To change your settings, click My Account. On the 4th line, choose how many search results you want to see on a page, then click Change Settings to save the new settings.

The wording of our baptism & burial displays has long been a niggling little thorn in my side. We used this awkward phrasing:

• John Smith son of William Smith & Isabel
• John Robson, of Shadforth, son of Ralph Robson (mason) & Elizabeth    

The code has now been changed to display:

• John Smith son of William & Isabel Smith
• John Robson, of Shadforth, son of Ralph (mason) & Elizabeth Robson

Because it can be confusing to decipher whether a middle name is indeed a middle name or a maiden name of a married woman, we display people with middle names like this:

• 1 Dec 1847 Henry Scougall, of North Road Tower, son of Henry Bayick Scougall (clerk) & Ann Frederica Scougall

while an actual maiden name looks like this:

• 1 Aug 1812 Anna Dobson, born 10-Jul 1812, 1st child of Rev`d. George Dobson (Curate of Monk Hasledon) by his wife Isabella Shepherd Hart (native of Tynemouth, Northumberland)

I had to make numerous code tweaks to accommodate all the special cases of maiden names, middle names that look like maiden names, single parents, etc., so if anything looks odd or confusing in a baptism or burial display, please let me know so I can fix it.

655 baptisms at Witton-le-Wear St. Philip & St. James in Auckland district, covering 1757-1797, and 841 burials at the same place covering 1700-1797. Abodes mentioned include Bishop Auckland, Bitchburn (Beechburn), Black Hall, Brancepeth, Castle Mill, Escomb, Fir Tree, Green Head, Hamsterley, Hargill, Harperley, Holland Hall, Howden, Lane House, Marshall Green, Newton Cap, North Bedburn, Rumby Hill, Stanhope, Wadley, Wham, Woodifield, Witton, Witton Castle, Witton Hall, Witton Row, and Wolsingham.

Sample baptisms:

• 9 Jan 1758 John Kilburn, son of Nicholas Kilburn
• 1 Jan 1764 Pearson Briggs, son of Thomas Briggs
• 19 Apr 1778 Isabel Vasey, of Witton Row, daughter of Anthony Vasey & Isabel
• 15 Oct 1786 Elizabeth Smurthwaite, of Gibbet Hill, daughter of John Smurthwaite & Mary
• 22 Oct 1797 Robert Littlefair, of Witton, son of John Littlefair & Mary

About a dozen burials include memoranda helpfully naming the relationship of the person who paid for the headstone – a couple of samples are below:

• 26 Apr 1700 Mark Snaith, son of Cuthbert Snaith
• 16 May 1721 Deborah Blacket, wife of Silas Blacket
• 5 Feb 1751 Anthony Hodgshon, of Hamsterley
• 25 Aug 1773 Ann Thompson, of Howden, wife of Joseph Thompson, Memerandum: Feb 5th 1774, that John Teasdale of Howden paid me 3 shillings & 4 pence acknowledgement for erecting a headstone for his daughter Ann Thompson
• 12 Mar 1783 Charles Snaith, of Marshall Green, son of George Snaith, Memorandum: Dec 20th 1783, that John & Joseph Snaith paid me three shillings & four pence acknowledgement for erecting a headstone to the memory of their brother Charles
• 31 Mar 1796 Mary Maudlin, age: 60, wife of James Maudlin

2,665 burials at Durham St. Nicholas spanning 1731-1812, from the parish register.  There are no burials recorded from 3 August 1812 to 9 Feb 1813. We now have a continuous run of burials at this church covering 1731-1836. Burials are typically somewhat detailed before 1798 and very detailed in 1798-1812.

Samples:

• 1 Jan 1731 William Hazard, son of Philip Hazard
• 30 Dec 1741 Jane Race, wife of Laurence Race (stranger)
• 22 Oct 1750 Israel Hanson, son of Abraham Hanson (soldier)
• 13 Jan 1771 Grace Featherstonehaugh, daughter of Ambrose Featherstonehaugh
• 29 Oct 1785 Sarah Priestley, daughter of Jeremiah Priestley & Eleanor
• 27 Nov 1797 Joyce Gray, widow of Bowes Gray (esquire)
• 10 Jan 1798 Jane Bone, of this parish, age: 5 weeks, died Jan 8th, daughter of Peter Bone (soldier, native of East Lothian) & Elizabeth his wife late Johnson
• 28 Mar 1801 Elizabeth Cameron late Wilkinson, of [the] Workhouse, age: 62, died May 27th, wife of Angus Cameron (labourer)
• 14 Oct 1801 George Gray, of Silver Street, age: 2 days, died Oct 13th, son of Christopher Gray (staymaker) & Elizabeth his wife late Dixon
• 3 May 1812 John Greenwell, age: 41, died May 1st, turnkey at the House of Correction & Gaol

1,133 baptisms at Durham St. Nicholas, spanning 1798-1812 and 1829-1836. We now have a continuous run of baptisms at this church from 1798-1836. These are from the Bishop’s Transcript except 1806, which is from the parish register. As usual, the baptisms in 1798-1812 are very detailed, and the ones after 1812 much less so. Residences mentioned (mostly in the 1829-36 set)  include Back Lane, Claypath, Elvet Bridge, Market Place and the Market Place Mill, Providence Row, Sadler Street, Silver Street, and the Workhouse.

Sample baptisms:

• 7 Jan 1798 Robinson Child, born 5 Jan, 1st son of Francis Child (skinner, native of St Giles Durham) by his wife Margaret Robinson (native of this parish)
• 10 Nov 1802 George Lonsdell Calbreath, born 17 Jun, second son of James William Calbreath (surgeon, native of Houghton le Spring) and his wife Joan Mary Lonsdell (native of Sunderland near the Sea)
• 17 Jun 1810 Mary Pickersgill, born 17 Sep 1802, illegitimate child of Hilton Reroy (native of Durham) & Sarah Pickersgill (native of Durham)
• 25 Dec 1829 Thomas Macknight, of Sadler Street, child of Thomas Macknight (fish monger) & Elizabeth, private 13 Feb
• 25 Dec 1836 Christopher Ashworth, of Back Lane, child of Henry Ashworth (wool comber) & Mary, private 26 Feb

We also added 829 witnesses to our 360 existing marriages at this church from January 1813 through mid-1837. If you previously purchased a marriage at St. Nicholas, you can view the witnesses by clicking My Previous Orders and reviewing the marriage. Some samples:

• 22 May 1830 William Harker, of Stanhope married Jane Rutherford, of this parish, by license
  Witnesses: Robert Rutherford, Elizabeth Rutherford, Cutbert Willis, Dorothy Charlton
• 14 Jun 1813 William Featonby, of this parish married Isabella Thirlwell, of this parish, by banns
  Witnesses: John Walker, John Friend

Replaced the index to marriages at Whickham St. Mary for 1750-1851 with full details, including witnesses (which started appearing in mid-1754), so those 2,354 marriages are now instantly available, including 1 we missed the first time around. Some samples:

• 6 Jun 1750 Joshua Dowsey married Ann Potts
• 17 Apr 1765 John Boucher (Curate of Whickham) married Alice Dawson, by licence
  Witnesses: Mary Radley, Jonathan Skelton
• 30 Apr 1780 Edward Bilcliff, of St.Nicholas, Newcastle-upon-Tyne married Sarah Shield, by licence
  Witnesses: Edward Shield, John Dods
• 21 Dec 1801 William Lashley married Mary Surtis
  Witnesses: Catherine Lashley, John Lamb
• 8 Dec 1822 Bartholemew Grundy married Jane Smiles
  Witnesses: William Watson, John Stark
• 27 Aug 1838 William Noble (bachelor, gentleman), full age, of Kingston-upon-Hull, son of Joseph Noble (bookseller) married Mary Frances Bennett (spinster), full age, of Whickham, daughter of George Bennett (farmer)
  Witnesses: Frances Bennett, William Ridley, Ann Noble
• 21 Jan 1849 Halliwell Oxley (bachelor, blacksmith), full age, of Swalwell, son of James Oxley (labourer) married Ann Masterman (spinster), full age, of Whickham, daughter of George Masterman (coalminer)
  Witnesses: Robert Masterman, Ann Cook

5,199 burials at South Shields St. Stephen’s, covering 1901-1947. This includes many burials from the Ingham Infirmary, Wellesley Hospital, Dene’s Hospital, the South Shields Union Workhouse, and the Harton Workhouse. Most burials give street addresses in South Shields or Harton, plus some North Shields and Newcastle-area addresses.

Sample burials:

• 10 Feb 1901 Thomas Young Brown, of Ingham Infirmary, age: 56
• 21 Apr 1902 Jane Scott, of 34 Charlotte Street, age: 84, buried without the rites of the church of England
• 20 May 1916 John Abernethy, of 48 George Scott Street, age: 88
• 06 Jun 1922 James Stephenson, of 9 Edith Street, age: 25, drowned at Sea 31st March 1922
• 25 Aug 1934 George Park Christie, of 169 Harton Lane, age: 74
  [Note: 169 Harton Lane was the address of the Harton Workhouse.]
• 18 May 1946 John William Sullivan, of 11 Thames Lane, age: 71, Roman Catholic
• 15 Apr 1941 Clara Taws Snr, of 5 Harper Street, age: 40, Enemy Action
  [Note: Killed by a German bomb that detroyed the Taws home.]

The last burial above, Clara Taws, was a mother who was killed along with her 18-year-old daughter Clara and 2-year-old son John in a direct hit of a German bomb on their house in South Shields. Click the BBC link below to read the very sad memoir written by her son Bill Taws, who had been evacuated to a farm outside the city and thus escaped the bombing:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/76/a2766576.shtml

This poor family had already lost a daughter, Vera, to diphtheria in 1936, and a son Stan (who was in the Air Force) was killed (along with more than 4,000 others) on the R.M.S. Lancastria when it was bombed by the Luftwaffe in June 1940. I’m sure their story is not uncommon, but it touched me that one family should suffer so much loss.

4,508 burials at Sedgefield St. Edmund the Bishop in Stockton district, covering 1855-1926. This register may well solve mysteries for many researchers who were previously unable to trace the deaths and/or burials of ancestors in various parts of the county – they were actually patients at the County Lunatic Asylum at Winterton near Sedgefield who lived out their last years there and were buried locally.

The ancient graveyard at St. Edmund the Bishop in Sedgefield had served the village for countless centuries and there would otherwise have been no real need for additional burial space by 1855, for there is no coal underneath this part of County Durham and therefore none of the consequent flood of newcomers which threatened to overwhelm other parts of the county, especially the graveyards. However, under the provisions of the 1808 and 1853 Pauper Lunatics Acts, the County Justices purchased land at Winterton on the edge of Sedgefield village in 1855 and the asylum was opened on April 13, 1858. The first burial from the asylum was registered in the St. Edmund register on September 3 of that year. It soon became obvious that the graveyard would not be able to cope with the resultant flow of corpses from the asylum, and a new cemetery was opened in Beacon Lane on January 5, 1862, though funeral services were still held at the parish church and entered in its burial registers. From 1862-64 and again from 1876-80 the burial registers indicate that the actual burial place was Beacon Lane Cemetery rather than the ancient graveyard. The burial place was not indicated in other years, but we assume that the graveyard was actually full and the vast majority of burials until 1909 took place at Beacon Lane Cemetery. On October 3, 1884, the asylum’s own church, St. Luke’s, was consecrated by the Bishop of Durham, and its own graveyard became operational in October 1891. A note in the St. Edmund burial register entry for a Jane Marshall on October 27, 1891 stated that ‘this was the last funeral from the County Lunatic Asylum to be held here’ but there were in fact a few stragglers over the next30 years, probably patients with a Sedgefield connection. After 1891, there is a separate burial register for St. Luke’s which Durham Records Online has yet to transcribe and which will cover all patient burials until the closure of the asylum in 1996.

By 1908 Beacon Lane cemetery was almost full, so another new burial ground, Sedgefield Cemetery, in Butterwick Road, was opened in 1909. This too has its own registers which have not yet been transcribed by Durham Records Online. Once the asylum had its own burial ground (1891) and the new Sedgefield Cemetery opened in 1909, the number of entries in the St. Edmund registers dropped away until there were only one or two a year in the 1920s.

The St. Edmund burial registers also covered most interments at its chapel-of-ease at St. Mary’s in Embleton. The services took place at St. Edmund and the burials at St. Mary. Some other interesting entries in the St. Edmund burial registers were several instances of people with aliases who turned out to have had their deaths registered by the GRO twice, under both names.

Residences mentioned besides Sedgefield in this register include Amerston Hall, Asylum Cottages, Beacon Hill, Bishop Middleham, Bradbury, Breckon Hill, Brakes, Bridge House, Butterwick, Chilton, Cole Hill, Cornforth, Cote Nook, Coxhoe, Crowdy Hall, Darlington, Donnewell, East Close, Elwick, Embleton, Fishburn, Foxton, Glower O’er Him, Hardwick Hall and Lodge, Hartlepool, High Swainston, Hogg’s House, Holdforth, Hole House, Horse Shoe House, Layton, Lizards, Low Hardwick, Low Swainston, Middle Swainston, Middlesbrough, Mordon, Murton, Norton, Old Acres, Redcar House, Ryall, Sands, Sedgefield Station, Shotton, South Moor, Spennymoor, Stockton, Stillington, Trimdon, West Hartlepool, Weterton, Wingate, Wolviston, Wynyard Cottages, and Yarm.

Samples:

• 19 Jan 1855 Elizabeth Younghusband, of Fishburn, age: 79
• 5 Jan 1862 Henry Carr, of Sedgefield, age: 78, buried at Beacon Lane Cemetery
  [Note: This was the first admission to the new cemetery in Beacon Lane.]
• 5 Feb 1862 Jeremiah James, of [abode blank], age: 45, buried at Beacon Lane Cemetery, died at Sedgefield Union Workhouse.
• 11 Oct 1871 Thomas Tinkler, of Cowley House, Sedgefield, age: 71
• 27 Mar 1874 John Stanley otherwise Arthur Healer, of [abode blank], age: 43
  [Note: This death seems to have been registered twice, as John Stanley and Arthur Healer.]
• 31 Mar 1880 William McAtomney, of [abode blank], age: 30, buried at Beacon Lane Cemetery, died at the County Lunatic Asylum, Winterton, near Sedgefield.
• 4 Aug 1881 George Boland, of Wolviston, age: 87, buried at Embleton
• 24 May 1897 Mabel Bee, of [abode blank], age: 22, died at the County Lunatic Asylum, Winterton, near Sedgefield. Funeral service conducted by the chaplain of the County Lunatic Asylum
• 5 Apr 1909 Christopher Wall Giles, of Sedgefield, age: 55, Church Warden & Organist
• 14 Dec 1926 Thomas Stamper, of Sedgefield North End, age: 88

7,915 burials at Shildon St. John covering 1847-1905 and 2,341 burials at New Shildon All Saints covering 1868 to 18 August 1903. New Shildon  parish was created in late 1868 from parts of Shildon, Heighington, and Auckland St. Andrew.

Residences mentioned include Adelaide Colliery, Auckland St. Andrew, Aycliffe, Bildershaw, Binchester, Bishop Auckland, Black Boy, Bolam, Brusselton, Chapel Row, Copy Crooks, Coundon, Darlington, East Thickley, Eldon, Fyland’s Bridge, Gurney Villa, Heighington, Hunwick, Leasingthorne, Middridge, New Shildon, Old Shildon, Riseburn, Royal Oak, Sedgefield, Shildon, South Church, Thickley, West Auckland, and Windlestone.

There was a smallpox epidemic extending from Dec 1871 to July 1872, which claimed at least 90 people and increased the death rate by 50% for this period.

Sample burials from New Shildon All Saints:

• 3 Apr 1872 Robert Innes Stuart, of New Shildon, age: 38, died of smallpox
• 29 Nov 1881 Louisa Anne Hogg, of Brusselton Railway Cottages, age: 9
• 7 May 1899 George William Urwin, of New Shildon, age: 3 months, Benjamin Urwin responsible for funeral
• 26 Jan 1902 Alfred Cowperthwaite, of Short Street, age: 30 (about), Coroner’s Order

Sample burials from Shildon St. John:

• 6 Jan 1847 Mary Elliott, of Old Shildon, age: 60
• 13 Jan 1853 Emma Sophia Manisty, of Shildon Parsonage, age: 8
• 2 Jan 1864 Henry William Freer Martin Lomax, of New Shildon, age: 34
• 28 Mar 1874 Margaret Cain, of Shildon, age: 93
• 25 Mar 1886 William Ruecroft, of Shildon, age: 42, killed at Eldon Colliery
• 3 Aug 1899 Edward Monaghan, of Shildon, age: 58, Roman Catholic. Burial certified under the Burials Amendment Act 1880.

This data set caused our burial count to exceed 700,000 ! Burial # 700,000 was at Shildon St. John:

• 20 Aug 1871 William Richardson, of Eldon, age: 6

1,090 baptisms  at Durham St. Margaret of Antioch, a chapelry in the parish of St. Oswald. The baptisms for 1765 – Mar 1768 and Apr 1769 - Mar 1770 are from the Bishop’s Transcript; the rest are from the parish register. Occupations were not recorded in this period here, except when the father was a soldier – for some reason, the clerk felt it necessary to record that fact. Some samples:

• 3 Feb 1765 Stephen Ross, son of William Ross & Margaret
• 22 Sep 1773 Rebeckah Brown, born 1771, daughter of William Walker (being the reputtative father) & Margaret Brown, A B [a bastard]; this child is about 2 years old at this time
• 15 Dec 1776 Bolton Ridson, son of Bolton Ridson (a soldier) & Mary
• 20 Apr 1783 Charles Denby, son of Charles Denby (a Soldier in the 68 Ridgement) & [blank]
• 16 Mar 1787 Jane Clamp, daughter of John Clamp & Jane