Gwennap, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
Gwennap St Wennepa is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Carharrack, Crofthandy, and Frogpool.

Gwennap Pit where John Wesley preached 18 times between 1762 and 1789, although Gwennap Pit is to the north west at the hamlet of Busveal near St. Day. The pit was caused by mining subsidence in the mid-eighteenth century. After Wesley's death the local people turned the pit into a regular circular shape with turf seats.

The parish church is an old foundation but was rebuilt in the 15th century and then thoroughly restored in the 19th century. The tower is detached. According to Charles Henderson "few Cornish churches are less interesting than Gwennap"[Cornish Church Guide (1925); pp. 105-06]



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 informaton for parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts, Contact information for the office holding the orginial records, Links to the Family History Library Catalog showing 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 79

Incorrect waypoints for St Day have been reported to engineers for future correction St Day references are P47/1/1-3

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/e_g/gwennap.php Sandra Pritchard also maintains her website http://gwennap-opc.com/index.html with transcriptions of the parish

Census records
Overview, Include any unique information, such as the census for X year was destroyed, Collection in FHL and link to catalog, Online sites.

http://www.1881pubs.com/ for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Redruth Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdication 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.