Kea, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
KEA (St. Kea), a parish, in the union of Truro, W. division of the hundred of Powder and of the county of Cornwall, 3½ miles SSE from the town of Truro. There are places of worship for the Society of Friends and Wesleyans.

Kea All Hallows is in Kea village and is the parish church. It was built in 1895 to replace a church of 1802 which was the work of James Wyatt. The church has a steep tiled roof and a lead spire. The font is Norman and of the Altarnun type. This present church was consecrated 4th June 1896. The church of St Kea at Old Kea was a chapelry in Kenwyn, Cornwall Ancient Parish until All Hallows was built. Other places in the the parish included Hugus, Come-to-Good and Penweathers.

St Kea reputedly landed at Old Kea on his first visit to Cornwall and established a church there, which was the parish church until replaced by All Hallows. Today, the parish is mainly agricultural, and is noted for giving its name to the damson-type Kea plum.

Later, the church at Old Kea was pulled down and only the tower remains today. A small chapel now stands beside the ruined medieval tower and services are held there twice a month.

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 FreeBMD.

Church records
Kea parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

To find the names of the neighboring parishes, use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map. In this site, search for the name of the parish, click on the location "pin", click Options and click List contiguous parishes.

Records are also available at the Cornwall Record Office.

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish.

Poor Law Unions
Truro 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:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Kea in GENUKI