Manaccan Parish, Cornwall - Genealogy & History

Lies on the south of the Helford River, between St Martin's and St. Anthony. It's ancient name was Minstor. Richard Polwhele, rector of Manaccan in 1793, wrote largely on the antiquities and history of Devon and Cornwall. In this parish is Helford , a small trading village. From here was a ferry across to Passage House in the parish of Mawnan. The mineral called manaccanite was first discovered in this parish. Gold also exists in the black sand which yields manaccanite, but not enough to pay for working.

Cornwall Online Parish Clerk (OPC) Project

Diane Donohue is the OPC for this parish and has transcribed many of the Meneage Area parish registers including those on this site with links to the left. If you need any assistance with your research for this area please do contact Diane who will assist in any way that she can.

Census records:

Another large volunteer project is the "FreeCen" project. The goal of this project is to publish online for free access, transcripts of all the English Census Records. The Cornwall section of this country wide project is well advanced and the links to the left lead to current records available online for Manaccan. Also making good progress is a project by "Archive CD Books" to digitise actual images of the various Census Records by agreement with "The National Archives" (formerly, The Public Record Office). Do visit there website for details on purchasing the CD's of the census records. Also available to make the searching of census records easier are indexes put out by the "New Zealand Society of Genealogists" (1851 index) and the "Cornwall Family History Society" and a visit to the respective websites will give details on how to go about obtaining these indexes.

The 1871 census is also online at Kindred Konnections One can use the search engine on the main page or click on "searches" under free guest services to the left and then click on "Cornwall Census" in the centre panel

Parish Registers

The links to the left will lead to some of the Manaccan parish registers that have been transcribed. There are other sources where microfiche copies of orginial registers can be obtained from, or where transcripts of the registers can be purchased on CD. Use the link to the left to visit the information page, where details can be found on what is available, online, from the LDS Family History Centres, from the Cornwall County Archives, and from other sources.

Links (Off Site)

The following are links to other resources for the Landewednack Parish:
Cornish Surname Index - by Place. hosted by Jon Rees - A list of Researchers with Manaccan Families. (scroll down)
Incumbents of Manaccan - Hosted by Sharon Symons
Photos of Manaccan Church - from Truscott Family webpages
Protestation Returns - offsite link - hosted by Shaz, (have a look around)

Can You Help?

I am continually searching for more information to add to this section about Manaccan and other Meneage Area (The Lizard) Parishes. If you have any records, especially extracts of the Parish Registers or Trade Directories or any other records relating to Landewednack or articles about the history of the district or even old photographs, then I would very much appreciate receiving a copy to add to this website. Or if you can help with the transcribing of records, then please do contact one of the OPC's covering the parish of your interest or contact myself for information.