Zennor, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
ZENNOR (St. Sennar), a parish, in the union of Penzance, W. division of the hundred of Penwith and of the county of Cornwall, 5 miles WSW from St. Ives. There are places of worship for Bryanites and Wesleyans.

Zennor (Cornish: Eglossenara) St Senara is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Porthmeor, Tendrine, and Tregerthen.

There is a local legend about a mermaid in Zennor. Matthew Trewhella was a good-looking young man with a good voice. Each evening Matthew would sing the closing hymn at the church in Zennor, solo. A mermaid living in neighbouring Pendour Cove was enchanted by the music. She dressed in a long dress to hide her long tail and walked a bit awkwardly to the church. Initially, she just marvelled at Matthew's singing before slipping away to return to the sea. She came every day, and eventually became bolder, staying longer. It was on one of these visits that her gaze met Matthew's, and they fell in love. However, the mermaid knew she had to go back to the sea or die. As she prepared to leave, Matthew said "Please do not leave, who are you, where are you from?". The mermaid told him that she was a creature from the sea and that she must go back. Matthew was so love-struck that he swore he would follow her wherever she went. Matthew carried her to the cove and followed her beneath the waves, never to be seen again.

It is said that if you sit above Pendour Cove at sunset on a fine summer evening you might hear Matthew singing faintly on the breeze.

At St. Senara Church in Zennor visitors may see a carved bench-end over 600 years old showing the mermaid.

'Zeal-Monachorum - Zennor', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 742. Date accessed: 24 March 2011.

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
Zennor 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
Penzance 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 websites are:


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Zennor in GENUKI