Stithians, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
Stithians (also known as St Stythians) is an Ancient parish in Cornwall

The parish church is dedicated to St Stythian, but there is a considerable difficulty in identifying this saint. References to the parish in 13th and 14th century records show various spellings: Stethyana, Stediana, Stedyan, Stediane, and Stidianus. Rev Sabine Baring-Gould's "Cornish Dedications" (1906) makes a connection with St Etaine of Tumna in Ireland, while Rev Michael Warner (Vicar of Stithians 1983-1993) suggests St Stephen. The saint's feast day is the Sunday closest to 10th July, and Stithians Show is held on the Monday following Feast Sunday There has been a church on the site since the 6th century, but the oldest part of the current church is 14th century; and the imposing tower was added in the 15th century. The former ecclesiastical parish of Carnmenellis, Cornwall is now merged with Stithians parish.

Civil Registration
Births, marriages and deaths were kept by the government from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is Free BMD.

Church records
Overview, Include information for parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts, Contact information for the office holding the original records, Links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Images of parish registers are available online in historic records (formerly Record Search) Images refer to Cornwall County Record Office reference: P 217

The images for the parish appear under the St Stithians way point a further waypoint Stithians exists at present and will be corrected in futrue by engineers. A further issue has arisen due to two filmings of the parish rgister affecting some periods. These await correction also.

One example is the Waypoint for Marriages 1754-1812 (Vol 217/1/6) displays Baptisms and burials register 1754-1812

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish http://www.cornwall-opc.org/Par_new/q_s/stithians.php

The history registers and much more have been contributed by the Online Parish clerk for Stithians Michael Bath.

Census records
Overview, Include any unique information such as, the census for X year was destroyed, Collection in FHL and link to catalog, Online sites.

Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Redruth Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to [county] Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
There are many maps and gazetteers showing English places. Valuable web sites are:


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Add here any relevant sites that aren't mentioned above.