St Mellion, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
St Mellion (Cornish: Sen Melyan) St Melanus is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall.

To the north, the parish is bordered by Callington, Cornwall and  St Dominic, Cornwall parishes, to the east and south by Pillaton parish, and to the west by  St Ive, Cornwall parish.

The parish name is taken from St Melaine, a 6th century bishop of Rennes, Brittany. The church of St Melanus stands in the village of St Mellion (the largest settlement in the parish) at OS Grid Ref SX388655. The older part of the church is the south side which was built in the 14th century whereas the north side is of the late 15th century and was built of granite. There is a fine series of monuments to the Corytons: these include a brass to Peter Coryton and his wife and 24 children, 1552, and two elaborate sculptural compositions to William Coryton, 1651, and Sir William, 1711 (both in a style characteristic of the early 17th century).

St Mellion is also the location of Pentillie, a 17th century castle and estate which has been the seat of the Coryton family since 1698. They had previously had an estate at West Newton Ferrers, also in St Mellion. The St Mellion golf course is also in the 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 143

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/l_m/mellion_st.php

Census records
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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 [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.