A new website at
www.1611macclesfieldsurvey.info has been created for family and local historians who are interested in tracing their ancestors amongst the inhabitants of the Manor and Forest of Macclesfield around 1611. The Survey was, in broad terms, the first census-type survey made in the district, and is invaluable to researchers who have not been able go back to this period in history and beyond.
The website lists all those freeholders, copyholders and tenants living in the above area at the time of the Survey, which was commissioned by Prince Henry, the Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Chester, and made by 23 persons of standing in the local community, who were empanelled as Jurors and sworn to enquire of and present such changes as the Survey showed.
700 persons are listed in the name index, which has been transcribed from a large book (reference LR 2/200) held at The National Archives, Kew, London. There is also a township and house name index containing 64 house names; and an index of Extracts from Escheators Books showing 37 entries that relate to periods much earlier than 1611, the earliest of which is 1362 - 1363. All these indexes are free-to-access. There are also details of the boundaries of the Survey and how acreage of land was calculated.
