St Wenn, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
St Wenna (Cornish: Sen Gwenna) is an ancient parish in the county of Cornwall.

St Wenna church has a chancel (which was rebuilt in 1823), nave, and north and south aisles. The arcades each include three depressed four-centred arches supported on monolith pillars; the material is St Stephens porcelain stone. The chief entrance is a south porch; a north door and a west door to the north aisle are blocked up. The tower only consists of two stages; a third was destroyed by lightning in 1663. It is large and a high status construction. It is buttressed on the square. The belfry contained five bells. A chapel at Carenzawatha was dedicated to St Mary Magdalane; it was destroyed in the Civil War and only some slight remains are now evident.

The modern parish is part of St Columb Major with St Wenn, United Benefice in the diocese of Truro.

There is a Methodist Chapel at Rosenannon Methodist Chapel, Cornwall and there formerly were others.

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
Overview, Include information for parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts, Contact information for the office holding the original records, Links to the Family History Library Catalog showing the film numbers in their collection.

Images of parish registers are available online in historic records (formerly Record Search) Images refer to Cornwall County Record Office reference: P 250

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish http://www.cornwall-opc.org/Par_new/t_z/wenn_st.php

Census records
Overview, Include any unique information such as, the census for X year was destroyed, Collection in FHL and link to catalog, Online sites.

Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
St Columb Major Poor Law Union

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to [county] 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

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