Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is an eastern county bordering both Norfolk and Suffolk. North lies Lincolnshire, south is Essex and Herts, west is Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Northamptonshire. It had an area of 2,331 sq kilometres in the early 20th century, but lost nearly 12% in the 1974 redistribution.

For statistical purposes the county is often combined with Huntingdonshire, the Isle of Ely and the Soke of Peterborough. The total population, under 200,000 in 1801, had more than doubled by 1851, exceeded one million in 1921, 1.5 million by 1971 before slipping below one million again with the realignment of counties.

A 2004 estimate placed the population of Cambridgeshire alone at 738,000. It ranked 15th by area and 29th by population amongst English counties.

The County Record Office is located in Cambridge. There is a basic web site, and the catalogue is available through Access to Archives. Check the web site for a list of parish registers for most Cambridgeshire parishes, and also microfilms of many Huntingdonshire parish registers. There are indexed transcripts of registers and bishop’s transcripts for many of these same Cambridgeshire and Huntingtonshire parishes. Similar records and indexes exist for non-conformist churches and chapels. The holdings also include a full set of census enumerators schedules (1841 - 1901). Other resources include:
Transcripts of monumental inscriptions, war memorials, etc.
Boyd’s index of marriages in Cambridgeshire
Indexes of baptisms and burials in Cambridgeshire 1801-37
Probate records (wills, administrations, inventories) of the Courts of the Consistory of Ely, the Archdeaconry of Ely and the Peculiar of Thorney.
Microfilm of probate records of the court of the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University.

The county is served by the large and active Cambridgeshire Family History Society.

No particularly significant group migration from the county to Canada has been located. However, it was one of the counties that contributed to the Puritan emigration to Massechusetts

Reference Web Sites

Cambridgeshire Family History Society

County Record Office Cambridge

GENUKI (Cambridgeshire)

Victorian County History: Cambridgeshire

200 Years of the Census in Cambridgeshire