Latest Updates
April 2025. New blog post added: Kinship, continued: The Waters Upton ‘Big Tree’.
February and March 2025. New blog posts added: A Man Missing and A Man Found: Thomas Plant, of the Parish of Waters Upton; plus Waters Upton in World War 2: Dorothy Tudge, Land Girl (Part 1) and Part 2; and In support of the school at Waters Upton.
Baptisms from 1640 to 1699 added to the Baptisms page. 20 additions to the Marriages at Waters Upton page (marriages now extend to 1938). 6 additions to the Marriages beyond Waters Upton page (these marriages now extend to 1938). 43 [update: now 56] additions to the Death notices page (notices now extend to 1948). 23 additions to the Newspaper Extracts page in the Land section (covering 1912 to 1945). In-page navigation improved for all five of the aforementioned pages.
1939 Register page name-indexed, with in-page navigation added. New Education section created, with the first transcriptions of pages from the Waters Upton school log books, and newspaper extracts added. Maps page updated, and moved into the ‘Land’ section. Geology – an introduction, and Geology – in detail added to the ‘Land’ section. World War 1 newspaper extracts added to the ‘In other news’ section.
1861 Harrison & Harrod’s Directory extract added to the Directories section; this section now includes extracts from 21 directories from 1851 to 1941.
About my Waters Upton One-Place Study
The churchyard of St Michael’s at Waters Upton is very small, with a correspondingly small number of graves. I visited it on 11 September 2011 to find the last resting place of my 3x great grandmother (Mary Titley, née Atcherley) and her husband. While there I decided to photograph all the gravestones and other monuments with legible inscriptions so that I could transcribe the inscriptions and upload the information and images to Find A Grave 🡕. I managed all but a few of the more recent graves (and some of the oldest, with very worn inscriptions) before I ran out of space on my camera’s memory card.
As a family historian, I couldn’t just take photos, make transcriptions, upload everything and leave it at that. I was curious about all the people who were commemorated in the inscriptions I had photographed. So using BMD indexes, parish register data, census returns and other online resources I endeavoured to answer the question “Who do you think they were?”
After the Register of One-Place Studies (now the One Place Studies Directory 🡕) was set up, I registered my photographic and genealogical survey of Waters Upton St Michael’s graveyard as an OPS. Then, with the creation of this website, I expanded the Waters Upton One Place Study beyond the parish churchyard with census abstracts, extracts from historic trade directories, parish register abstracts (baptisms, marriages and burials run from 1700 into the 1800s), and other records – and there’s more to come.
I also joined the Society for One-Place Studies 🡕, and at the Society’s AGM in November 2019 I ‘stepped up’ to do my bit for this small but invaluable organisation by joining its Committee and taking on the role of Social Media Coordinator (as of October 2024 I have stepped down from the committee, but I continue to maintain several social media accounts for the Society). If you conduct a one-place study (or are thinking of starting one) do consider joining, taking part in the Society’s activities, and sharing your knowledge and experience with fellow members.
I used to fit my one-place study research around my Atcherley one-name study (see the Atcherley Family History website 🡕), but for a long time now my Atcherleys have been feeling very neglected. I am gathering and analysing Waters Upton’s historical records, exploring the family trees of the people named in them, and presenting my findings here. I have even (October 2023) managed two return visits to Waters Upton, with a newer camera and a vastly better memory card!
I hope this website will prove to be of use or interest to at least some of the present-day descendants and relatives of those who once lived in this small Shropshire parish.
Steve Jackson
For more about the church visit the St Michael’s Church Waters Upton website 🡕
Waters Upton One-Place Study 
My 7xgt grandfather was John Wase. It was interesting to find a legible extract of his will and the sale of the farm animals & furniture by his grandson, also John.
The first John’s son Benjamin was also vicar at Waters Upton in the 1750’s
It’s nice to find all the information all in one place.
Regards
Paul
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Good Morning Steve my name is Nicola. I was born Edge and my family originates from Shropshire. I gather one of my ancestors Sarah Jackson may have been of your family. I was born in Birmingham but have lived in France most of my life.
Two years ago as I am doing ancestry tracing I travelled to Ellesmere and Wem. We also stopped to see Waters Upton to see the churchyard but had little time and could not see any Edge graves.
I gather as some of them were paupers maybe they had no proper graves as such. Or maybe hey have disappeared.
I have just discovered your website. Fascinating.
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Excellent website I have looked at it many times and find the information very useful, I maintain the St Michael’s Church website. I am very interested in the masthead photograph, I have a copy of it as a postcard in black and white, I am wondering how you have a coloured photo of it. The photograph was taken prior to 1959 when my family moved from Lower House Farm to the Beeches, which is the house on the left in the photograph, I am still living there now. The 1941 Kelly’s directory transcript does not show my grandfather Griffith Davies living at Lower House Farm, in the actual directory he is listed under John Brookes farmer, The Beeches.
A previous comment from Paul Davis mentions the Rev Benjamin Wase as vicar of Waters Upton , he was actually Rector of Great Bolas from 1745 to 1758.
Many thanks again for a website with a vast amount of information from your research.
David Williams
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Thanks so much for your feedback David! The masthead image is from a copy of the very same black and white postcard, which I scanned and then uploaded to the MyHeritage website to get it colourised. Have a look at my blog post “A Waters Upton Postcard” for more info – I will now have to update that post to confirm that the house on the left is, as I suspected, The Beeches!
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Hi, I am currently researching the Dodds who were born in Waters Upton – in particular Ann Dodd, born 1849. I couldn’t however find her in the baptism records although her brothers Thomas and Richard are listed (born 1842 and 1848) – would you be able to help? Anne married George Bowen and moved tot he Wirral and died in 1013 in Oxten, Birkenhead.
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I see you are way ahead of me with researching Ann Dodd, and I am now catching up (she is in my one-place study tree/forest on Ancestry but only partially researched). There no baptism for her in the Waters Upton register as far as I am aware, and Ann is not alone in that. There are several possibilities as to why that might be. She may have been baptised but the event was not then recorded in the register. I think this happened more often than we realise. She may have been baptised at a nearby non-conformist chapel, the records of which have not survived or have not been put online (but, given that her brothers were baptised at Waters Upton, it is not clear why that might be, if indeed that is what happened). She may not have been baptised at all as a child, through oversight or some other reason, with the possibility arising from that, that she was baptised elsewhere as an adult.
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I am so glad to find this website from a link in the Waters Upton parish newsletter. We have lived in The Hall ( opposite St Michael’s) since 2012, slowly restoring this beautiful old house. Now I am retired, I would like to find out more about the house ( we seem to have 2 Roman sarcophagi in the grounds!) and wonder if you could point me in the right direction to start researching. Thanks, Gillian Lockwood
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Hi Gillian, great to hear from you! So sorry for the long delay in responding, I have been away from the website for some time following a bereavement at the end of last year. As it happens, I am working on a ‘house history’ of The Hall, which may be of interest / use to you – stay tuned!
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Good afternoon Steve. My name is Sally Percival and I have recently started researching my family and found you site as my grandparents Herbert Charles Percival and his wife Mary Jane (nee Cornes) lived in The White House in Waters Upton.
My uncle and aunt (Geoffrey James France Percival and Sybil Mary France Percival) were born when my grandparents were living in The White House. My father Arthur Stanley France Percival was born when they had moved to Crudgington Grange.
Uncle Geoff spent his working life as a tea planter in Sri Lanka and retired to Seaton in Devon. Auntie Sybil lived in Solihull and worked in a school there until retirement when she moved to Cornwall for a while and then to Winchester. She died in a nursing home in Yeovil 4 months before her 100th birthday.
My twin sister Susan and I were born in Penang Malaysia where our father worked as a Rubber Planter. My mother Edna (nee Ellis) escaped from Singapore with Susan and me in February 1942 and we eventually came back to England.
Our father joined the Malaysian Volunteer Force to fight the Japanese, worked on the Death Railway and spent some time in Changi Jail and was flown home at the end of the war seriously ill with throat cancer. He only had about a year in England before he died (26 August 1946) and is buried in Newton Abbot.
I find it all very fascinating and am grateful for all the work you have done on researching families who lived in Waters Upton. Many thanks
Best wishes Sally Percival
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Do you know if the burial register is still at the church?
I am looking for the burial of Hester Burton who died in 1861 she would not have had a grave stone because of lack of money so I need to see entries for this church. She was living at Cold Hatton when she died.
Thanks
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