North Petherwin, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
PETHERWIN (North), a village and a parish in the district of Launceston and county of Devon; and a sub-district mainly in Cornwall. The village stands near the boundary with Cornwall, 4½ miles NW of Launceston r.station and has a post-office under Launceston. The parish contains also the hamlets of Brassacott, Helscott, and Maxworthy. There are two chapels for Wesleyans, two for Bible Christians, one for U. Free Methodist.

North Petherwin (Cornish: Paderwynn Gledh) is an Ancient Parish and has transferred between the counties of Cornwall and Devon in history.Historically, the Dukes of Bedford have been major land owners in the parish. As well as the church town, settlements include Helscott, Brassacott and Maxworthy.

The parish is currently administratively part of Cornwall.

The parish church is dedicated to St Paternus (see also South Petherwin) and is unusually grand for a small village church. It was described in White's Devonshire Directory of 1850 as: ... an ancient structure, with a tower and five bells... (containing)... memorials of the Yeo and other families. The north aisle is Norman and the south Perpendicular and many of the windows, including those of the clerestory, are 13th century in style. There is some old woodwork including a communion rail dated 1685.

The modern parish is part of the Egloskerry, North Petherwin, Tremaine and Tresmere, United Benefice in the diocese of Truro.

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.

Although historically part of Devon, North Petherwin has been part of Launceston registration District since 1837.

Church records
North Petherwin 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.

Census records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Union
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
North Petherwin in GENUKI