Launceston St Mary Magdalene, Cornwall Genealogy

Guide to Launceston St Mary Magdalene, Cornwall ancestry, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Parish History
LAUNCESTON (St. Mary Magdalene), a borough, market-town and parish, and the head of a union, in the N. division of the hundred of East, E. division of Cornwall, 20½ miles NE by E from Bodmin and 213 WSW from London. There are places of worship for Independents, Wesleyans, and other dissenters.

Launceston St Mary Magdalene is an Ancient parish historically in the Diocese of Exeter but in the modern Diocese of Truro. With St Stephen by Launceston, Cornwall and St Thomas by Launceston, Cornwall it forms the Launceston benefice in the Diocese of Truro.

The Tudor church was built in 1511-1524 by Sir Henry Trecarrel as a memorial to an infant son.

The ornate carvings in granite originally carved for the mansion he began to build at Trecarrel, Lezant have survived. The tower of the church dates from the 14th century, an earlier church and graveyard having previously occupied the site. The modern Roman Catholic Church is dedicated to the martyr Saint Cuthbert Mayne; it was built in the Byzantine style and opened in 1911. The churches at St Stephen by Launceston, Cornwall and St Thomas by Launceston, Cornwall form distinct parishes neighbouring the Ancient Parish.

England Jurisdictions 1851 may assist to search neighbouring parishes.

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 Free BMD.

Church records
Launceston St Mary Magdalene 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 Clerks page for the parish.

The history registers and much more have been contributed by the Online Parish clerk for Launceston Phillipa Stout.

Poor Law Unions
Launceston 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:


 * 1851 Jurisdiction Maps
 * Vision of Britain

Websites
Launceston St Mary Magdelene in GENUKI