Lawhitton, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
LAWHITTON (St. Michael), a parish, in the union and parliamentary borough of Launceston, N. division of the hundred of East, E. division of Cornwall, 2¼ miles SE by E from Launceston.

Lawhitton (Cornish: Nansgwydhenn) St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall.

The parish church of St Michael is in Lawhitton village at OS Grid Ref SX355825; it is of various periods of English Gothic architecture. The plan is unusual and the tower stands in the position of a south transept. The tower is 13th century in date and there is a north aisle. The font is Norman, of the Altarnun type. Features of interest include the Jacobean pulpit, 1665, and two monuments, to R. Bennet (d. 1683) and in Coade stone to Richard Coffin (d. 1796)

In the 880s, Saxon priests controlled church estates like Polltun, Caellwic, Landwithan (Pawton, in St Breock) and Lawhitton. Eventually they passed these over to Wessex kings. These estates were granted to the Bishop of Sherborne to whose diocese Cornwall had been added. Landwithan included the parishes of Lawhitton, South Petherwin (with Dunheved, modern Launceston), Trewen and Lezant. In 1050 they passed to the Bishop of Exeter and remained a peculiar deanery of the Bishop until 1850. Consequently two-thirds of the parish of Lawhitton still belongs to the Church Commissioners. Until 1261 the benefice of Lawhitton consisted of a vicarage and a sinecure rectory; they were then combined as a rectory. From then until 1924 there were 60 rectors, of whom probably only 19 were resident.

The modern parish is part of Lezant with Lawhitton and South Petherwin with Trewen, United Benefice in the Diocese of Truro.

Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Cornwall ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * Cornish Parish Records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census Records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Launceston 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

Websites
Lawhitton in GENUKI