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Not many people realise it but Cornwall is blessed with a truly impressive historical archive. This treasure trove of ancient documents is free for all of us to access and records in magical detail the lives of our ancestors. With this culturally priceless resource at our fingertips, along with some extensive local databases, researching your Cornish family tree really couldn’t be easier or more exciting.
Several years ago I returned to Cornwall to live after spending a few years abroad. There had never been any real prospect of me settling permanently anywhere else, my ties to the county are too strong. However I didn’t realise quite how deeply that connection ran until I began researching my family history.
I was born near Falmouth and grew up on a farm which has been in our family for roughly 5 generations. I have always known where ‘home’ is. I grew up surrounded by nostalgia, by memories and family stories of relations that I had never known, so looking into my family tree seemed a natural thing to do. Little did I know where it would take me and exactly how far back into the past.
The first step was mining all the information that my father could remember about his relations to establish a few dates as a starting point. He managed to dig out a handful of marriage and baptism certificates and a dusty family bible that recorded in faded black ink births and deaths as far back as my great grandfather Thomas Henry Beard (once the Mayor of Truro don’t you know). It was fascinating hearing my father relate his memories of his grandparents. It was the little stories that really brought them to life for me, like my Grandpa Dale and his love for his shire horses or my great uncle Arnold winning sheaf tossing contests at the village show. Snippets of information fleshing out the past.
The few names and dates my father gave me were all I needed. Before I knew it just by using the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks free database I had traced my family back to the 18th century and was still going.
The Cornwall Online Parish Clerks was started in 2000 and holds thousands of individual entries taken from the original paper records. Volunteers have painstakingly transcribed the churches records of baptisms, marriages and deaths from each of the Cornish parishes. All you need do is type a name in to their Search and see what pops up. It is like following a trail of breadcrumbs, each name and date you discover taking you to someone or somewhere new.
Another wonderful resource is the Census Returns which are available from 1841 to 1911. The records from 1841 to 1891 are available on the website FreeCen, another free online database. Searching here I was able to see whole households of my family, where they were living, their occupations, places of births as well as any visitors or servants who were living with them at the time of the survey. Each scrap of information helps to fill in a gap or raises another question which keeps you searching for more.
It is important to remember however that these online resources although an extremely useful tool are not fool-proof. It is always a good idea to check the original sources if you can.
And fortunately in Cornwall we really can.
The Cornwall Record Office holds in its strongrooms the entire written memory of the county since 1130 - a staggering 1.5 million documents on 4 miles of shelving. There are 200,000 individual Wills, 258 complete sets of church registers going back to 1537 and 60,000 maps.
David Thomas one of the archivists has been working for the Record Office for 33 years. He has forgotten more about Cornish history than I have ever known and was my guide into the past. David is understandably very proud of the resource that he looks after. “I think we are quite unique in Cornwall to have a complete set of all the parish records. They are all here – all the ancient parish registers are here. They are a key source but it is a pity that people don’t progress further than a straight family tree, there is so much more to find.”
It’s true there is so much more to research than the straight forward births, marriages and deaths. I think I would have lost interest pretty quickly if it had just been a case of compiling a list of names and dates. It is the forgotten stories that are your family’s real history and the treasure worth searching for. There is a whole hidden world of context to be discovered that can reveal the lives of your ancestors in so many different ways. Once you start looking you can discover their names in all kinds of unexpected places, in court or prison records, on leases, the notes from the Overseers of the Poor or even the Bastardy Records – the historical equivalent of the child support agency.
It was at the CRO in Truro that I found some of my most exciting discoveries. Hearing my father’s memories had been magical but it was here from the boxes of dusty documents that my ancestors really started to come to life for me. I was able to see their wills, read their final wishes and see their worldly possessions listed, down to the animals they owned and the last china plate. I could trace their faltering signatures on leases of land that they farmed or the mark they made on their wedding day in a parish register.
I discovered that one ancestor John Dale was a Reeve of a manor near Zennor, another was a bailiff and another a Bible Christian Preacher. Those records allowed me to find where in Cornwall I was really from and when I realised that for at least 400 years my family had been living “down west” somehow I wasn’t surprised. It has always been my favourite part of the county. I was able to take my father to see remains of the chapel where his ancestor preached, the family farm near Zennor and also the ruin of a mill near Drift that the Dale’s ran for three generations on the 1700s. It all felt like touching the past.
Cornwall Record Office (CRO) is based in Truro at the moment but is in the process of moving to a new purpose built complex in Redruth called Kresen Kernow. “Currently different records are in different places but after next year they’ll all be in one place which will be much better from a researcher’s point of view” says David. When Kresen Kernow opens its doors in the autumn 2018 it will bring together the largest collection of documents, photographs, maps and books related to Cornwall in the world.
But the CRO is not the only valuable resource we have in Cornwall.
The Cornwall Family History Society was established 1976 and has hundreds of members across the globe – anywhere that the Cornish emigrated taking their culture and history with them. They kept records of thousands of monumental inscriptions taken from Cornish graveyards as well as research relating to hundreds of local surnames.
Another often overlooked resource are old newspapers. The Cornwall Studies Library in Redruth, which will also be moving to Kresen Kernow, has 200 years of local newspapers on microfilm. Newspapers are a fascinating glimpse into the past, the articles will enable you to envisage more clearly what life was like when your family was alive. You can often find lengthy obituaries which can be really useful in providing extra details about a person – where they worked, worshipped or who they associated with. It all adds context and helps to build a more complete picture of the person.
I also found articles relating to some more dramatic episodes of my family history, such as the drowning of my great uncle Walter at Perranporth and the suicide of another relation, all reported in such detail it gave me goose-bumps. Of course there is the more mundane chapters of life there too, like my great grandmother advertising for a new maid or my Grandpa Dale winning 1st prize at the 1945 St Columb Minor Agricultural Show with one of his horses.
I asked David from CRO for his advice for those starting out on their own family tree. His answer was simple. “Grill your granny! Sit her down, get a nice cup of tea and get your notebook out. Get her to tell you everything she knows. Quite often if granny or whoever is quite reticent that means that there is something there you need to dig into a bit more. If I could give you one tip, whatever you do don’t just stick to births, marriages and deaths, branch out and ask the other questions.” Find the real stories.
The one document that I discovered that really stands out for me is the will of Bryan Dale, yeoman from 1629. The ink scrawl across the crisp cream vellum details my 11x great grandfather’s final wishes and the attached inventory brings his whole world to life, his furniture and clothes, the animals in his yard including a hive of bees and even what he had in his kitchen cupboard.
I was very lucky with my family tree. It turns out that my ancestors were not as interested in travel as I was. They barely moved more than 30 miles in 400 years and it made them pretty easy to find. This immobility was mostly due to the fact that they were all farmers and millers, men and women tied to the land. It was only when the farm my great grandfather Richard Dale and his two brothers were leasing was put up for sale that a move became necessary. In 1880 all three families packed up their belongings and drove their heavily-ladened carts to a farm near Mabe, just a few miles from where I live now.
Indispensable Local Resources:
Cornwall Record Office, Truro
Cornwall Family History Society, Truro
Cornish Studies Library, Redruth
Cornwall Online Parish Clerks: www.cornwall-opc-database.org
FreeCen: www.freecen.org.uk
The Courtney Library – Royal Cornwall Museum
West Briton Archive online: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wbritonad/
My Top Tips
· Do ask questions while you still can, our elderly relations, neighbours and friends are the best connections to the past we will ever have.
· Don’t waste money on costly commercial websites, utilise our wonderful free local resources.
· Don’t just stick to births, marriages and deaths – our ancestors had interesting lives too and learning about them will make you feel so much closer to them.
· Don’t forget your family home has a history all of its own to be discovered. Find out the exciting episodes hidden in the fabric of the building.
· Don’t give up if you hit a bit of dead end. Try different sources such as school records, parish vestry minutes and newspapers. Seek advice from a local expert at CRO and find where your ancestor is hiding.
· Do go out and about. Visit the churches where they married, the houses or villages that were their home. Bring their world to life.
· Do get excited. This is your history, where you come from, what makes you who you are. Who knows where your family tree will lead you, the stories you will discover and the secrets you will uncover.
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