Tresco (Scillys), Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
TRESCOE, one of the Scilly Islands; 2 miles NW of St. Mary's. It is next in size to St. Mary's; contains a village, called Dolphin; contains also the residence of the proprietor of the islands, on the site of an abbey, founded in the 10th century.

Scilly Islands, island-group at the entrance of the English Channel, 25 miles SW. of Lands End, 3500 ac., pop. 2320;called Scilly. The islands constitute a parish of Cornwall, and are in the Western or St Ives Parliamentary Division of that county. They are about 30 miles in circumference and number 140, but only six of them are of any importance: St Mary's, Tresco, St Martins, St Agnes, Bryher, and Samson.

See Isles of Scilly for more information.

Tresco St Nicholas was enlarged between 1822 and 1824 by Christopher Strick, surveyor, and enlarged again in 1835 and survived until replaced by the present building in 1879. It occupies the site of an earlier church.

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
Tresco 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.

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:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Add here any relevant sites that aren't mentioned above.