Probus, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
PROBUS (St. Probus), a parish, in the union of Truro, W division of the hundred of Powder and of the county of Cornwall. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans.

Probus St Probus St Grace is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Grampound, Grampound Road and Tresillian.

There was a monastery here before the Norman Conquest which continued to exist until the reign of Henry I. King Henry gave the church of Probus to Exeter Cathedral and the clergy of Probus thereafter were a dean and five canons (the deanery was abolished in 1268 and the canonries in 1549). The first vicar was instituted in 1312; the parish had dependent chapelries at Cornelly, Cornwall and Merther, Cornwall. The church was built mainly in the 15th century but the tower was still under construction in 1523. In the church is the brass of John Wulvedon and his wife, 1512.

There are records of no less than nine medieval chapels in the parish and three more of which traditions exist. Two mansions formerly existed at Golden: one of the Wolvedon family and a larger one of the Tregians. The line of Wolvedons became extinct in 1514. At the Tregian mansion the Catholic martyr Cuthbert Mayne was arrested in June 1577. The farmhouse at Golden contains the remains of a hall-house of the late 1530s, reconstructed about a century later and extended in the 18th century. There is also a fine barn with original roof timbers and a first floor window.

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
Probus 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 theCornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish.

The history, registers and much more have been contributed by the Online Parish clerk for Probus Lorna Leadbetter. Lorna also has her site for Probus and Cornelly.

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 websites are:


 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Probus in GENUKI