Durham Record Office

Durham County Record Office: the official archive service for County Durham and Darlington

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Ask us

Records staff at Durham Police Headquarters, 1968 (D/X 1520/756)

The information below also indicates what types of enquiry we will not respond to and gives examples of the types of legal requests we will respond to following a request for information. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

Birth and baptism

To order a copy of a birth certificate (for births from 1837 onwards) search Registrars Certificates and apply to the County of Durham Registration Service. See more about birth, marriage and death records and civil registration.

See more about parish registers and nonconformist church registers.

Marriage

To order a copy of a marriage certificate (for marriages from 1837 onwards) search Registrars Certificates and apply to the County of Durham Registration Service. See more about birth, marriage and death records and civil registration.

See more about parish registers and nonconformist church registers.

Divorce

We do not hold information about divorce.

How to get a copy of a decree absolute or final order.

See more about divorce records.

Death, burial and cremation

To order a copy of a death certificate (for deaths from 1837 onwards) search Registrars Certificates and apply to the County of Durham Registration Service.

See more about birth, marriage and death records and civil registration.

See more about parish registers, nonconformist church registers, and cemetery and crematorium records.

Find a grave

Many people contact us because they are searching for the location of an ancestor’s grave. This can be more complicated than you expect. Here are a few points to remember.

Someone who has died may have been:

  • buried in a church graveyard
  • buried in a public cemetery
  • cremated at a public crematorium

You may have to search several different types of record to find them.

To make it harder, these records are held in several different places by:

  • the church which manages the facility
  • the local council which manages the facility
  • the local archive services covering County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Teesside

A death certificate will tell you where a person died and the cause of death but not where they were buried or cremated.

People who were buried did not always have a headstone, and many headstones have been damaged or removed over time. There are many indexes to the monumental inscriptions on headstones in church graveyards.

Most burial and cremation registers survive, which will help you to confirm a burial or cremation at a named churchyard, cemetery or crematorium. Fewer grave plans survive to help you establish an exact location or plot.

Remember that the people who managed burial grounds in the past could never have foreseen the huge interest today in finding an exact grave location for an ancestor. Many grave plans have been lost through time, forgotten after a churchyard was closed or not handed on to the next responsible officer. Some information was probably never written down.

See more about cemetery and crematorium records and grave plans.

Find a will

To find a County Durham will proved before 11 January 1858 search the North East Inheritance database (pre-1858 Durham Probate Records).

To find a will proved from 1858 onwards in a civil probate registry use the Gov.uk: Search probate records or find a will service.

See more about wills.

Find a coroner’s report for a death from unknown, violent or unnatural causes

See information about the coroners records we keep.

Find where someone lives, now or in the past

Census records from 1841 to 1921 will show everyone living at a given address. Search the census on popular family history websites such as Ancestry and Findmypast. You can access the Ancestry website free in all County Durham libraries.

Electoral registers from 1832 onwards list everyone entitled to vote at a given address.

See more about electoral registers for County Durham and electoral registers in general.

Land tax assessments from 1759 to 1831 list landowners and occupiers in a given township. Addresses are rarely given. Names are indexed on our online catalogue.
See more about land tax assessments.

Contact information for Durham County Council electoral services is on the Register to vote page.

Find ancestors who served in The Durham Light Infantry (DLI)

To research soldiers who served in the First World War (WW1) or Second World War (WW2) see our guides:

Check Library Online – Durham County Council for books that you can borrow from the local library service.

See more about Durham Light Infantry Archives.

The National Archives (TNA) holds information about Regiments of the British Army and also of individuals who served in the Armed Forces (TNA information guides on the Army)

Find ancestors who were miners

Search Mining Durham’s Hidden Depths, our index to miners working in the Durham coalfield, containing over 229,000 entries.

See colliery personnel records, coal mining and Durham collieries, and browse or search our Durham collieries database.

Find ancestors in the police force

See our guides to police records and law and order.

Find someone in prison or sentenced by the courts

See our guides to prison records and law and order.

Find someone in Winterton County Asylum or a hospital

See information about County Durham and Darlington hospital records, including Winterton Hospital, the County Asylum at Sedgefield which opened in 1858 and apply using our research service.

Find ancestors in workhouses

The workhouses established by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 operated until 1929, when the care of poor people in County Durham was transferred to the county council’s Public Assistance institutions. The survival of poor law records for County Durham is quite limited.

See our guides to the poor law and poor law records.

Find school and exam records

We don’t keep school examination board certificates at the Record Office. Find where to go for replacement certificates at Exams, tests and assessments – Durham County Council.

See more about the school records we keep.

Find out about a town or village

See our guide to house history and local history sources.

Check Local Studies libraries in the North East and Libraries in County Durham.

Find out about a specific building

Our guides to house history and local history sources and building control plans will help you to research a specific building, or start by searching historic maps on our interactive mapping application. If you are researching a historic building check the Keys to the Past website provided by the council’s archaeology service.

Find building plans

Use our guide to building control plans to assess what records are available. The process to locate a specific building plan is often complex.

Find vintage vehicle registration records

Our guide to vehicle registration records summarises the registration marks covered by registers or cards we hold. To order a copy of an original vehicle registration record so you can send it to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), please ask for a certified copy. Only certified copies are accepted by DVLA as proof of original registration.