Searby is mentioned in the Domesday Book as "Seurebi", in the Lindsey Hundred, and the Wapentake of Yarborough.

It comprised 23 households, 4 villagers, 2 smallholders and 15 freemen, with 5 ploughlands, a meadow of 80 acres (0.32 km2), a mill, and a church.

The Dean and Chapter of Lincoln were the appropriators of the rectory and patrons of the living (incumbency).

The parish National School was built in 1855 for £170 on the site of the previous vicarage; it was attended by 80 children.

Professions and traders resident at Searby in 1872 were the parish vicar, a schoolmistress, the curate of [All Saints' Church] Grasby (1 mile to the southeast), a tailor, a bricklayer, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, a cow keeper, and three farmers.