St John, Cornwall Genealogy

England   Cornwall   Cornwall Parishes

Guide to St John, Cornwall family history and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
JOHN, ST., a parish, in the union of St. Germans, S. division of the hundred of East, E. division of Cornwall, 6 miles (S. E. by E.) from St. Germans.

The parish church is dedicated to St John (originally it was dedicated to St John the Evangelist but from 1912 the dedication was changed to St John the Baptist).

The parish is opposite Plymouth, Devon, separated from it by St John's Lake, an inlet of The Hamoaze in Plymouth Sound.

St John parish is in the St Germans Registration District. To the north, the parish is bordered by St John's Lake and to the south by the sea. To the east, the parish is bordered by Millbrook ,Cornwall, to the south-east by Maker, Cornwall and to the west by Antony, Cornwall 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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

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 93

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/h_k/john_st.php In addition the Online Parish Clerk has contributed to the website for the Rame Peninsula http://www.stoneyburn.ca/OPC_Web/ with other parishes Rame, Cornwall Maker, Cornwall

St Germans, Cornwall &amp; Sheviock, Cornwall

Census records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
St Germans Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Cornwall 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