Visiting Truro Records Office

[ruthsturges]

I am planning a weeks visit to Cornwall, and hope to do some research in the Records Office at Truro. Can anyone give me advice about what I should prepare, bring or ask for beforehand, so i can make the most of the visit. I also want to visit graveyards in the localities of my Cornish ancestors, but this is all new to me, so again, any tips? Many thanks. Ruth in Warwicks

[white]

On your visit to Cornwall R.O. Take plenty of paper and pencils (No pens allowed).
Also have as many questions as possible, written down for yourself , before you go. Otherwise you will get lost chasing some of what you find and forget to look at what you wanted to search. Also do book in advance. It can get very busy.
Whilst you are in Truro go into Cornwall family history society in the city. Plenty there and always someone to help.
On my last visit to the area all of the churches I was interested in were open. I hope this still applies, but with the advent of vandalism it may not be so. Most of the churches are quite close so you could cover more than you think. Again, paper and pencils would be handy.
Hope you enjoy your visit.

[cornishglassons]

May 24, 2008 6:20:27 GMT -5 ruthsturges said:

I am planning a weeks visit to Cornwall, and hope to do some research in the Records Office at Truro. Can anyone give me advice about what I should prepare, bring or ask for beforehand, so i can make the most of the visit. I also want to visit graveyards in the localities of my Cornish ancestors, but this is all new to me, so again, any tips? Many thanks. Ruth in Warwicks

Hi Ruth,

I have recently returned from my first family history trip to Cornwall - although have enjoyed many holidays there previously. I visited many graveyards while I was there, and even my usually bored teenage children enjoyed looking for names on gravestones. However, after spending a couple of hours searching through the graveyard in Breage, a helpful passer by mentioned there was actually a list of names of people buried there with a map inside the church. So my tip is you can save hours if you look in the church first!!!

Every church I visited after that had some help or advice to offer and all were open. Also if you are lucky enough to bump into any members of the church community I found them only too willing to help you (though one helpful churchwarden told me the vicar who may have known more was in the local pub and wouldn't be available until after it closed - I won't tell you which one!! ).

I also found the booklets on sale in the churches very interesting and was lucky enough to find mention of my relatives in several of them. Also recent church magazines can tell you if there are still relatives with your name in the local area. And check the visitor book in the church, you may, as I did, find other people researching your family too.

Good luck and enjoy, I was a bit shy at first but I found everyone extremely helpful and quite used to and happy to answer questions.


Best wishes,
Carole

[Cornish Terrier]

Although it is now 13 years since I was in Cornwall and visited the CRO I can verify what has already been said.

I will stress that it pays to do some research prior to your visit so you know just what you need/want to look at and there is plenty of information available on the holdings of the CRO.

You will probably want to look at Parish Registers and Wills as well as numerous other types of document so prepare as comprehensive a list as possible of what you require.

Also be aware that, depending on how busy the CRO is, you may be restricted to 60 minutes (sometimes even 30 minutes) at a time (especially when using film/fiche readers) so you will be trying to fit a lot into what soon becomes a very short time.

It is therefore important to prioritise your research requirements.

Another point to consider is the type of resources you wish to view.

Unless things have changed you will find most Parish Registers on Microfilm or Microfiche although some later ones may still be the actual physical registers.

Wills and other such documents are probably going to be physical documents rather than digitised. (At least that was the case when I was there.)

So - plan your research carefully so that you can, if necessary, alternate between film/fiche readers for your PRs and a table for physical documents and that way you should be able to utilise all the time you have available to you.

If you plan to have several sessions at the CRO then try to work out the days that you wish to visit and also whether you want to spend the whole day or just morning or afternoon.

Book well in advance.

And remember what I have said above about the types of things you wish to view.

You can organise material to view prior to your visit - something that will save you lots of time.

And once you have started you may find other documents that you wish to view or you may find information that will change the order in which you wish to view things.

Prior to leaving a session (or for the day) you should be able to organise with the helpful staff to have materials for your next visit ready for you when you arrive.

I think you will find all of this quite useful.

And don't forget to visit a few of the Pubs while you are in Cornwall.

Ian

[cornishmaid]

Oh dear, I feel like a big wimp, but I only live a few miles from the Cornwall Record Office, yet I've never plucked up the nerve for a visit Actually it took me 6 months to visit the St Ives Archive Centre and the Cornwall Centre in Redruth.

I do not same to have the same problem with Churches and pubs though

The above sounds like sound advice, so as soon as I pluck up the courage to visit I will certainly take heed.

[donne]

As several have advised, it is really important to book well in advance, particularly if you can only visit the Cornwall Record Office on certain dates. The reading room at the CRO is quite small and has restricted facilities particularly for fiche readers and map tables for the larger documents. Remember it's only open Tuesday to Friday. You may wish to consider visiting the Courtney Library at Truro Museum as well, but do check with the website to find out when it's open.

To make the most of the time available, make a list of documents and send it (email) in advance of your visit. Use the A2A catalogue search to locate documents of interest, and if you find any, click on the 'catalogue in full' tab at the top of the page - this will give you all the text in the reference and this extraction may be all you need.

For the CRO catalogue, A2A doesn't yet give you the will index. However, a tip I was given when I was there two weeks ago, was to search the separate CRO catalogue as linked from the CRO website. Use the ref 'AP' for wills and a name in the search text to list all wills of that name.

As for churches, my experience is that most of them are locked these days. If you can find a contact telephone number, you may be able to make arrangements to look inside.

[trencrom]

Hello again Ruth,
I would endorse what the previous posters have said, with these additions;

Remember to take a camera or camcorder to get shots of the churches that you are interested in, and also of any other places associated with your family. Habve some spare change handy when you visit the churches so that you can purchase the booklets etc that are often on sale there.

The wills at the Cornwall Record Office have been put on microfilm so you may not get to sight the originals. Check the indexes first which are available either online or in the CRO's publications (which should be available at CFHS and some other places) beforehand.

I would recommend that you visit all four principal archives if you have the time -- viz., CRO, CFHS, the RIC (Royal Institution of Cornwall, in Truro, which houses the Courtney library) and the Cornwall Centre in Redruth housing the Cornish Studies library.
If you have the time, perhaps break up your study time at the above with trips to see where you ancestors came from and to go over your search outcomes in between visits to the libraries, so that you can follow up any leads or breakthroughs before you go home.

CFHS have done a lot of work on MIs (Monumental inscriptions --ie. tombstones etc) so it might be worthwhile to check their holdings bvefore you visit the churchyards. Have pen and paper with you in the churchyard so that you can record the inscriptions in case it is not all visible in the photographs.

If you have ancestors in the Penwith area itself, check out the Morrab library in Penzance. This is a private library and so there will be a small fee for admission, but it is well worth the visit as it has some material other repositories may not have.

Don't forget the census records if you have not already searched these.

Remember to take out time from your research by having a sample of the many different kinds of Cornish pasties that you will find in Kernow, and/or a sumptuous Cornish cream tea!

[ruthsturges]

THANKYOU everyone for your kind help and advice. There is no way I'd visit Cornwall without savouring the pasties, cream teas and saffron cake as well as local fish dishes. But that aside, your advice about the research centres is most helpful. I do have another query though. Are you are to simply 'browse' the recors at Truro or do you have to ask for each document? How would i know what I wanted..... do i need to look on LDS website for the film no's or Cornish Family History for ID numbers first? ie John Pearce b 1789.... to check his parents I know they are William and Ann, but I'd need to see his birth cert to chq his mother's maiden name.... the same with his sisters and whether they ever married etc.... are there other things i need to have researched before I even go? Thanks for all your help, just worried I wont make the best use of the time and have to wait another year to get there!!! Ruth

[white]

Hi Ruth,
Only a thought.
Don't know where you are with your research, but if you would like to post some details maybe someone can help.
From experience, there is always someone out there with some of the knowledge you seek.
By the way, Ruth, are you aware of the following sites,
west-penwith.org.uk
members.iimetro.com.au/~rosewarne/cor_prob.html
freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kayhin/ukocp.html
Lots of items on the first one (West Penwith Resources)
Wills on the second
Census on the third
Finally I have quite a lot of Pearce (and Variants) in my file. May be able to help there. Do be prepared for various spellings of surnames. Remember they could not write. Also do be prepared for age variations. If asked what year they were born in, they probably knew. But if asked how old are you, they were not into maths. so could not count accurately.
If you find a child of a couple on the IGI do use the batch number and you may well find more siblings.
Roy

[Cornish Terrier]

Re: Browsing at the CRO.

Short answer is NO you cannot just go to a shelf and browse through titles or leaf through books to find what you want.

As has already been stated the bulk of the Parish Registers are now on Microfilm or Microfiche.

When I was at the CRO they had Indexes of the holdings that you could use to identify a particular item you wished to view.

Then it was a matter of filling a request slip and handing it to the attendant who would arrange for the item to be retrieved from the archive for you.

Although I have not looked at it specifically I would think the CRO website would have much of these indexes available so you could prepare in advance.

Perhaps we have other members who have a better modern-day understanding than me.

[myghaelangof]

Ruth,

I have just scanned through all the responses to your request for info on visiting the records office and would add several observations from recent visits I have made.

The staff are extremely helpful and friendly, and if you request any document or catalogue, it is produced very promptly with no question. However, if you find a microfiche entry that is tricky to read they are extremely reluctant to get the original parish registers out. In their experience the original is not any clearer. The only time I've managed to see an original register was for a baptism in 1800 when it appears they hadnt filmed 1799-1801. The experienced staff will come and help you decipher the entries on request, and then its up to you to decide if they have read it correctly or not!!

If you want printouts of entries (from memory there are 2 printers) and cant get the print settings spot-on, make sure you ask them for help.

Good luck, Mike

[trencrom]

May 26, 2008 5:37:36 GMT -5 ruthsturges said:

THANKYOU everyone for your kind help and advice. How would i know what I wanted..... do i need to look on LDS website for the film no's or Cornish Family History for ID numbers first? ie John Pearce b 1789.... to check his parents I know they are William and Ann, but I'd need to see his birth cert to chq his mother's maiden name.... the same with his sisters and whether they ever married etc.... areRuth

The LDS film numbers are for the records that the LDS have microfilmed for themselves and therefore are internal references for the LDS themselves. As far as I know the CRO does not reference their own films using the LDs numbers.

If however you live near an LDS Family History Centre you will be able to order the LDS films in to that local centre for a small fee, and go and view them there for yourself. Many if not most parish registers in Cornwall have been filmed by the LDS, but bear in mind that not all records held by the CRO have been filmed by the LDS. The LDS locality catalogue (check the LDS website) though will tell you what the LDS have filmed and therefore by implication what they have not.

I would be inclined to go and see what CFHS have first before going to CRO if you are uncertain. CFHS have lots of indexes and a search of these will help clarify what original records you then want to have a look at when at the CRO. Go perhaps to CFHS with a list of questions prepared in advance for the staff while you are there.
You will probably need to know beforehand which parishes you are interested in, especially if your ancestors had surnames that were common in Cornwall.

If John Pearce was born in 1789 then there won't be a birth certificate as certificates did not begin until civil registration commenced in 1837. What there should be though is a christening entry in the local church register. That will probably be the local Church of England parish church register. To find his mother's maiden name you will then need to search the register for a marriage of a William Pearce to an Ann that took place a little prior to the christening of their first child.

you could also check the Familysearch website and search the IGI to see what christening and marriage entries have already been included in that index. Remember though that the IGI is just an index and may have entries missing etc. but it should give you some idea of the possibilites. Christenings of siblings or the wedding of the parents may have also occurred in adjacent parishes, or else be a year or two out in time from what one may be expecting.

Trencrom

[ruthsturges]

REALLY appreciate the contributions colleagues are making on here about going to the Records office and other places for family history research. Strange how the bug gets you once you start. Just got to go to work now for another 7 weeks before i can get my hands on the microfilms!! Thanks everyone. Ruth

[tracy]

I visited this last week.

I needed ID (driving licence), pencils and paper. Take a pound coin for the lockers in the foyer, as no bags etc allowed inside.

They will do copies of documents for a fee, or you pay £5 on the day and you can use your camera as many times as you like.

There are no catering facilities, so take a flask and a packed lunch unless you fancy a walk into Truro. You can eat your lunch or have a drink in the foyer.

Parking is free, and the offices are located at Old Cornwall Hall.

I did phone to make an appointment. Staff on the phone were really helpful, and had obtained a lot of information I had requested on the phone. Staff on the day were excellent too, you could tell they really enjoyed their job and wanted to help.

Hope this helps someone.