Michaelstow, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
MICHAELSTOW (St. Michael), a parish, in the union of Camelford, hundred of Lesnewth, E. division of Cornwall, 3¼ miles SW by S from Camelford.

Michaelstow (Cornish: Lannvighal) St Michael is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Treveighan.

It is named after 'St Michael's holy place' and the parish church is dedicated to St Michael and All Angels. The River Camel runs along its eastern edge and the surrounding parishes are Lanteglos-by-Camelford, Cornwall to the north, St Breward, Cornwall to the east, St Tudy, Cornwall to the south and St Teath, Cornwall to the west. Helsbury Castle, an iron age hill fort, stands on Michaelstow Beacon half-a-mile north of the village.

The parish is part of the St Tudy with St Mabyn and Michaelstow, 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 FreeBMD.

Church records
Michaelstow 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 Unions
Camelford 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
Michaelstow in GENUKI