Merther, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
MERTHER (St. Merther), a parish, in the union of Truro, W. division of the hundred of Powder and of the county of Cornwall, 5 miles (W.) from Tregoney. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans.

Merther St Coan was an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Cornwall, created in 1787 from chapelry in Probus, Cornwall Ancient Parish.

Merther church is dedicated to St Coan but is now a disused  ruin. A new church was built at Tresillian Bridge [Tressillian Holy Trinity] in 1904 (the font, bells, statue of St Anthony and pulpit from Merther were moved to the new church). The church was abandoned in the mid-20th century. Until 1866 Merther Church was a chapelry to Probus, Cornwall: it then became a separate parish but was united with  Lamorran, Cornwall in 1900.

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
Merther 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.

The history, registers and much more have been contributed by the Online Parish clerk for Merther.

Census records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Truro 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
Merther in GENUKI