Gwennap, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
GWENNAP (St. Wenap), a parish, in the union of Redruth, E. division of the hundred of Kerrier, W. division of Cornwall, 8 miles E from Truro. There are places of worship for Baptists, Bryanites, and Wesleyans.

Gwennap St Wennepa is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Carharrack, Crofthandy, and Frogpool.

Gwennap Pit where John Wesley preached 18 times between 1762 and 1789, although Gwennap Pit is to the north west at the hamlet of Busveal near St. Day. The pit was caused by mining subsidence in the mid-eighteenth century. After Wesley's death the local people turned the pit into a regular circular shape with turf seats.

The parish church is an old foundation but was rebuilt in the 15th century and then thoroughly restored in the 19th century. The tower is detached. According to Charles Henderson "few Cornish churches are less interesting than Gwennap" [Cornish Church Guide (1925); pp. 105-06]



Find Neighboring Parishes
Use England Jurisdictions 1851 Map
 * Type the name of the parish in the search bar
 * Click on the location pin on the map
 * Choose Options from the pop up box
 * Click "List Contiguous Parishes" to find the neighboring parishes

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
The Church of England (Anglican) became the official state religion in 1534, with the reigning monarch as its Supreme Governor. Non-Conformist refers to all other religious denominations that are not the official state religion.

Church of England
Due to the increasing access of online records: Hover over the collection's title for more information Other Websites These databases have incomplete parish coverage.
 * Individual parish coverage for databases in this table are inconsistent and should be verified
 * Dates in the following table are approximate
 * The Genealogist Parish Registers - Cornwall ($)
 * UK Websites for Parish Records - Links to online genealogical records
 * Online Genealogical Index - Links to online genealogical records
 * Cornish Parish Records

Non-Conformists (All other Religions)

 * 1717 England & Wales, Roman Catholics, 1717 at FindMyPast ($), index and images (coverage may vary)

Census records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Redruth 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
Gwennap in GENUKI