Family History

Kennington's surviving parish registers go back to the following dates:-

Baptisms - 1670

Banns - 1755

Marriages - 1673

Burials - 1671

All registers up to the year 2000 are held at the Centre for Kentish Studies, County Hall, Maidstone.

A CD-ROM copy of the registers up to 1900 is available for purchase from the Kent Family History Society (CD-ROM no. 21 - Parish Registers, Vol. 7 - includes the Kennington records.)

20th century registers will need to be consulted at County Hall.

21st century registers are currently still held at the parish church.

During the 1960s a collection of Monumental (tombstone) Inscriptions* was transcribed from various churchyards in Kent, including Kennington. These have now been published on CD-ROM by the Parish Register Transcription Society, in conjunction with the Canterbury based Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, www.ihgs.ac.uk. The CD-ROM - KEN MI in the Medway series of Monumental Inscriptions - can be purchased from the Parish Register Transcription Society, www.prtsoc.org.uk.

Kent Archaeological Society presents notes on the inscriptions in the churchyard, some of which have long since become unreadable. A list, recorded in the 1750s, details memorials on the floor of the "south chancel" (what we now call the Lady Chapel); these are no longer visible. For several centuries this part of the building was a private family chapel so many memorials are to the same families, e.g. Randolph and Kingsley: owners or tenants of Burton Farm for many years.

The Kent War Memorials Transcription Project has extensively researched the men commemorated on Kennington War Memorial. The Project website links download reports as .PDF files.

Kent County Council has a list of local archaeological and historical societies in Kent.

Copies of both the parish register and *Monumental Inscription CD-ROMs are held by a member of the PCC who is prepared to do a reasonable number of look-ups on request. Please contact the Parish Office in the first instance: email stmaryken@talktalk.net