skip to main content

Family History Resources

For local history resources at Stoke-on-Trent City Archives, please see our Local History Resources page.

Anglican Parish Registers

  • Free access to the ‘Staffordshire Collection’ on Findmypast, at archive service points and libraries in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. Currently this contains around 3,000 parish registers, with 4 million entries, 1538-1900.
  • Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials for parishes across north Staffordshire, 1538 to c.1925, on microfiche.
  • A complete set of the publications of the Staffordshire Parish Register Society, which provide printed transcriptions of baptisms, marriages and burials for many Staffordshire parishes, 1536-1812.

Bishops Transcripts

  • Bishops transcripts for some Staffordshire parishes on microfiche, 1551-1812.

Methodist Registers

  • Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials for both Methodist and other nonconformist chapels within the City, 1797-2004.  Pre-1925 registers are available on microfiche only.
  • Birth and baptism registers for Stoke-on-Trent area only, 1786-1837, on microfilm.

Census Returns

  • Census returns for North Staffordshire north of, but not including, Eccleshall, Stone and Uttoxeter, 1841-1901, on microfiche.
  • 1881 Census Indexes for Staffordshire on microfiche and Great Britain on CD-rom.
  • 1851 Census Indexes for part of the City on hard copy.
  • 1871 Census Surname Indexes for North Staffordshire on hard copy.

Ancestry.com and FindMyPast

  • Free access to Ancestry.com and FindMyPast in our reading room, including access to the General Register Office indexes to birth, marriages and deaths, and census returns.

Electoral Registers

Microform

  • North Staffordshire constituencies 1832-1901 on microfiche
  • Stoke-on-Trent (towns of Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton, Longton) 1857-1863 on microfilm
  • Stoke-on-Trent (towns of Stoke, Longton and Fenton) 1911-1915 on microfilm
  • Hanley (towns of Hanley and Burslem) 1885-1915 on microfilm.

Originals

  • City of Stoke-on-Trent from 1918-date
  • Biddulph, 1958-1985
  • Cheadle, 1979-1985
  • Leek, 1963-1985
  • Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1958, and a few earlier ones
  • Staffordshire Moorlands from 1985 (including Biddulph, Cheadle and Leek)
  • Stafford and Stone, later Stafford, from 1963

Poll Books

  • Lists of men eligible to vote in local parliamentary elections, for Stoke-on-Trent, 1807, 1859, 1862 and 1865
  • Lists of men eligible to vote in local parliamentary elections, for Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1807 and 1837.

Rate Books

  • Owners and occupiers of individual properties in street order.
    • Hanley 1862-1916 (incomplete)
    • Stoke-on-Trent 1878-1922
    • Longton 1913 and 1915
    • Fenton 1915
    • Burslem 1911 and 1914-1916
    • Shelton 1907-1910 and 1915.
  • City of Stoke-on-Trent valuation list, 1934 with additions and alterations to 1956, complete

Poor Law Records

  • Westcliffe Institution, Turnhurst Road, Chell (Wolstanton and Burslem Union Workhouse): registers of births, baptisms and deaths, 1840-1959; registers of inmates, 1887-1948.

Cemetery Records

  • Records of several cemeteries in Staffordshire from 19th to 20th centuries.

Trade Directories

  • A collection of trade directories for both Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire, 1783-1940.

Newspapers

  • Staffordshire Sentinel, later Evening Sentinel, now Sentinel, from 1854, on microfilm.
  • Staffordshire Advertiser, 1795-1973, on microfilm.
  • Indexes to births, marriages and deaths in the Staffordshire Advertiser, 1795-1840, in hard copy.

Staffordshire Name Indexes