Morwenstow, Cornwall Genealogy

Parish History
Morwenstow is an Ancient Parish in the county of Cornwall. Other places in the parish include: Coombe, Crosstown, Eastcot, Eastcott, Gooseham, Goosham, Woodford, and Woolley.

Morwenstow is the one-time home of the eccentric vicar and poet Robert Stephen Hawker (1803–1875), the writer of Cornwall's anthem Trelawney. Hawker is also credited with reviving the custom of Harvest Festival.

The Church of St Morwenna and St John the Baptist, Morwenstow is dedicated to Saints John the Baptist and Morwenna and is of the Norman period. The Vicarage was built for Hawker and has chimneys in the form of the towers of various churches associated with him.

The nearby coast is hazardous to shipping and the corpses of drowned sailors were laid out in the churchyard and then buried. Hawker buried over forty who were washed up within the parish boundaries.

One of the memorials in the churchyard was the white figurehead of the "Caledonia", a 200 ton ship from Scotland which sank on the perilous rocks of Higher Sharpnose in 1842. The captain and crew are buried in the churchyard. In 2004 the figurehead was removed for conservation, with the intention of placing a replica in the churchyard and the conserved original inside the church.

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
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.

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.

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:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

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