St Mary's Church, Handsworth - Genealogical Records

Genealogical Records

Under the aegis of the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy & Heraldry (BMSGH), who sought it from the Handsworth Historical Society and the congregation of the church, a working group of the Handsworth Historical Society, chaired by Roy Lancelott, worked between March 1980 and March 1984 to create a record of every monument in St Mary's churchyard. This record comprises six volumes, in bound A4, with yellow covers, numbered from I to VI, titled 'Monumental Inscriptions, St Mary's Church Handsworth Birmingham'. Photocopies of this record, which contains sketches of various headstones and detailed maps showing their position in the graveyard, have been deposited with the BMSGH Library (Fiche number 11054), Margaret Street, Birmingham, The Society of Genealogists, London, The Local Studies Department of Birmingham Central Library, and Stafford County Record Office. Brian Hall observes this piece of research has "brought to light once again the fascinating social history of this side of the emerging City of Birmingham during the Victorian and Edwardian period."

Nowadays, less than a handful of monuments are visited by relatives of those interred, and three simple headstones are tended annually by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who recorded the burials of 14 soldiers there during World War I.