England, Cornwall Parish Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records

England Devon England Cornwall

What is in the Collection?
This collection contains church records from the counties of Devon and Cornwall, covering the period 1538-2010. Availability of records may vary by year and locality.

A parish register is a record of ordinances performed in the Church of England. Every minister recorded all the baptisms (officially termed “christenings”), marriages, and burials which took place in his parish each year, and bound them into a single, handwritten volume. After 1754, a new law required that marriages be recorded in a separate book, and banns, or proclamations of the intent to marry put forth in the parishes of both the bride and groom, were to be recorded in yet another book. Starting in 1812, pre-printed registers were introduced, and separate registers were then kept for baptisms, marriages, and burials. Often kept within a county record office or other archive repository, registers are central to English genealogical research as they are often one of the only sources for finding families and individuals in England before the start of civil registration in 1837.

Until 1876, the Diocese of Exeter covered the counties of Devon and Cornwall on the southwestern peninsula of Great Britain. After 1876, the Diocese of Exeter lost much of its territory to the newly created the Diocese of Truro. Exeter retained most of the county of Devon, and Truro was given the county of Cornwall plus the Devon parishes of Virginstow and St Giles on the Heath.

Collection Content
This collection contains select baptism, marriage, and burial records. Baptism record entries are the most common in this collection, followed by burial records, with marriage records constituting the smallest portion.

What Can this Collection Tell Me?
The following lists indicate potential information given in each type of record. It must be remembered that every record may not provide all of the listed information.

How Do I Search the Collection?
To search for a person in a Church of England parish register, it would be helpful if you knew the following information:


 * Name and age
 * Family relationships
 * Where the person lived and the corresponding parish
 * When the person lived; if you do not know the time period, it would be helpful if you estimate it from what you know of more recent generations

Remember that there may be more than one person in the records with the same name as your ancestor and that your ancestor may have used nicknames or different names at different times.

To search by name: Fill in the requested information in the initial search page. This search will return a list of possible matches. Compare the information about the ancestors in the list to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct family or person. You may need to compare the information about more than one person to find your ancestor.

To search this collection by name: To search the collection you will need to follow this series of links: ⇒Select "Browse through images" on the initial collection page ⇒ Select the appropriate "County" ⇒ Select the appropriate "Town (with parish)" ⇒ Select the appropriate "Event Type and Year Range (with Volume)" which will take you to the images.

Search the collection by image comparing the information with what you already know about your ancestors to determine if the image relates to them. You may need to look at several images and compare the information about the individuals listed in those images to your ancestors to make this determination.

For tips about searching on-line collections see the wiki article FamilySearch Search Tips and Tricks.


 * Baptism or christening records list the parents’ names, making it possible for you to connect your ancestor to an earlier generation. You may find a birth date listed or be able to approximate a birth date.
 * After 1812, the baptismal records list a place of residence, making it easier to identify your family by where they lived. The records also list the father’s occupation, which makes it easier to identify your ancestor's family when more than one family with the same name lived in the parish.
 * Marriage records sometimes state the residence for the bride and groom. You can use this information to look for their baptisms and to identify the children of this couple.
 * Marriage records after 1754 list the names of witnesses, who were often family members. These can help you identify your ancestor’s family.
 * Signatures in the records might be used to identify a particular individual by the handwriting style.
 * After 1812, and sometimes before, burial records include the age of the deceased. Use this age to approximate the person’s birth year and to find the baptismal record.
 * If the deceased is a child, the parents’ names might be given. This information helps to extend your family another generation. The occupation of a deceased male might be given (especially after 1812) and can help identify your ancestor when there is more than one person by that name in the area.

Tips to Keep in Mind
Banns indicate the parish of residence of the bride and groom. This information often leads to the records of another parish. You can search for the baptisms of the bride and groom in the parishes of residence since these might also be the parishes where they were born.

If possible, you may want to search both the parish registers and the bishops’ transcripts since one is a handwritten copy of the other and might contain differences.

Online Image collection

The Diocese of Exeter Parish Registers were published online in August 2010 as part of the FamilySearch effort to convert microfilm holdings to digital images. Entitled England Cornwall Church of England Parish Registers 1538-1900 the collection also includes some material for non-Conformist chapels which were filmed at the Cornwall Record Office at the time of filming Church of England registers. There are also typed transcripts of Society of Friends marriages included for certain areas of the county.

Parish pages for the Diocese and county will build to assist researchers identify problems within the collection which have been reported to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. If you encounter any inaccuracy within the collection please use the Feedback feature when viewing images or you may use the support team email for assistance.

Parishes transferred to the newly created Diocese of Truro on 15 December 1876 and the present day Diocese of Truro have over 300 churches.

General Information About These Records
Because a major portion of these records have been transcribed and indexed by the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks and then published in a searchable database on their website, you may be able to use the Online Parish Clerks database as an index to this collection.

You would find the image of your ancestor's register entry quickly and easily by first finding him in the Online Parish Clerks database, and using the said process with the date taken from that database to go directly to the image in this FamilySearch Historical Records Collection. This same method could also be used if you have found the date of an event in the IGI.

In July 1837, the government instituted the civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths. However, parish registers continue to play an important role because they are often more readily available than civil registers. Bishops’ transcripts are a backup source for parish registers that are missing or illegible.

Known Issues with This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

Citing this Collection
Citing your sources makes it easy for others to find and evaluate the records you used. When you copy information from a record, list where you found that information. Here you can find citations already created for the entire collection and for each individual record or image.

Collection Citation:

Record Citation (or citation for the index entry):

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