Camborne, Cornwall Genealogy

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

Parish History
CAMBORNE (St. Martin), a market-town and parish, in the union of Redruth, E division of the hundred of Penwith, W division of Cornwall, 4 miles WSW from Redruth, and 267 SW from London, on the road from Truro to Penzance. There are places of worship for the Society of Friends, Wesleyans, and Bryanites.

Camborne is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Adjewhells, Barripper, and Roseworthy.

The church is dedicated to St Martin and St Meriadoc: it is entirely of granite, of 15th century date and is listed Grade I. There is a western tower and the aisles are identical in design: an outer south aisle was added in 1878. St Martin was added to the original dedication to St Meriadoc in the 15th century.

An inscribed altar stone found at Chapel of St Ia, Troon (now set in the altar of the parish church), and dated to the tenth or eleventh centuries, attests to the existence of a settlement then. The chapel of St Ia was recorded in 1429 and a holy well was nearby. The site was called Fenton-ear (i.e. the well of Ia). The stone is very similar to one now in the garden at Pendarves, used as the base for a sundial.

Camborne churchyard contains a number of crosses collected from nearby sites: the finest is one found in a well at Crane in 1896 but already known from William Borlase's account of it when it was at Fenton-ear. Two other chapels are known to have existed in the medieval period: one not far from the parish church was dedicated to Our Lady and St Anne and one at Menadarva (derived from Merther-Derwa) was one of Celtic origin dedicated to St Derwa, Virgin, but mentioned in 1429.

Neighbouring Parishes
England Jurisdictions 1851 can be used to locate neighbouring parishes by clicking on the "Options" tab and selecting "List Contiguous Parishes."


 * Carnmenellis, Cornwall
 * Illogan, Cornwall
 * Tuckingmill,Cornwall

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
parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Records for Camborne cover 1538-1946, these registers are kept at the County Record Office, County Hall, Truro TR1 3AY.

The Family History Library has microfilmed parish registers from 1837-1946 and bishop’s transcripts from 1684-1772. Microfilm numbers can be found at FamilySearch.

Images of parish registers are available online at FamilySearch under Records. Parish registers refer to Cornwall Record Office reference: P 27.

Images of Camborne Baptisms, Marriages, Burials 1538-1811 are 216 images from a 1945 book of transcriptions published by the Devon and Cornwall Record Society. A table of contents of the images is Image 6-44          Baptisms through 1706 Image 44- 81        Burials 1538 - 1706 Image 81 - 98       Marriages 1538 - 1748 Image 98 - 118     Baptisms 1706 - 1745 Image 119 - 132   Burials 1706 - 1745 Image 132 - 139   Marriages 1746 - 1775 Image 139 - 169   Baptisms 1746 - 1775 Image 169 - 216   Burials 1746 - 1811

Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
An extremely useful resource is the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks.

Sally Cann has a Camborne website with history and transcriptions for the parish including Tuckingmill,Cornwall and census transcription links.

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
Camborne in GENUKI