Bryher (Scillys), Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
BREHAR, or Bryther, one of the Scilly island; in the NW of the group, 21/2 miles NW of Hugh-Town. It is two miles long, rugged, wild, and high; and inhabited chiefly by firemen.

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.

Bryher All Saints church claims to be the most westerly church in the Anglican provinces of Canterbury and York. Bryher is the most westerly of the Scilly Isles.

The earliest record of a permanent church on Bryher is the account of the dedication of a small building to 'God and All Saints' by the Chaplain of St Mary's, Revd Paul Hathaway, in 1742. It was approximately 24 feet by 13 feet and also served the community on Samson. The church was enlarged in 1822 by the surveyor Christopher Strick to provide seating for 154 people. There were repairs in 1832 and 1833 by Thomas Downing, carpenter and William Williams. There is a plain granite font dated 1861. There were additions and alterations in 1882 and a new chancel was added in 1897 and new roof (6 feet higher than the previous) in 1930. The stained glass windows were replaced, the work being completed in 2007.

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
Bryher 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 juisdiction. 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:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

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