Lesnewth, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
LESNEWTH (St. Knet), a parish, in the union of Camelford, hundred of Lesnewth, E. division of Cornwall, 5¾ miles N by E from Camelford.

Lesnewth St Michael and All Angels (Cornish: Lysnowydh) is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Freworwall and Polpeor.

It is a small sparsely populated parish set in farmland with only a few houses, farms and a church; Lesnewth manor is mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Lesnewth was also the name of one of ten ancient administrative shires of Cornwall: Lesnewth (hundred).

The name is of Cornish origin and means 'New Court' (that is, a chieftain's estate): the 'Old Court' was at Helston near Camelford (Hen-lis, -ton being a Saxon addition) once known as Helston-in-Trigg in distinction to Helston-in-Kerrier.

Lesnewth is one of the parishes within the Boscastle 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
Lesnewth parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Images of parish registers are available online at FamilySearch Images refer to Cornwall Record Office reference: P 121

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks page for the parish.

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 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
Lesnewth in GENUKI