Davidstow, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
DAVIDSTOW (St. David), a parish, in the union of Camelford, hundred of Lesnewth, E. division of Cornwall, 3½ miles NE from Camelford.

Davidstow;(Cornish: Lanndhewi) St David is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Tremaill.

Davidstow' means David's Place and according to legend the church was founded by Saint David in the 6th century, whilst visiting his mother at nearby Altarnun. The church is large but was very much restored in 1875 so that little original work remains inside. Both the nave and the east windows are wider than usual in a Cornish church; a few benchends are interesting, one portrays a bagpiper. The parish is part of the group in the charge of the Rector of Boscastle.

The Parish is nowadays part of the Boscatle with Davidstow United Benefice in the Diocese of Truro.

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
Davidstow 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 the Cornwall Online Parish Clerkswhich contains several images of the church.

Census records
Cornwall Online Census Project

Poor Law Unions
Camelford 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 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
Davidstow in GENUKI