The Parish of St. Martin, is situated in the Deanery and hundred of Kerrier. It is bounded on the north by the Helford estuary which seperates it from Constantine, on the east by Manaccan, from which it is separated by Frenchman’s Creek and its tributary rivulet, on the South by St. Keverne, and on the west by Mawgan. The present church was built in 1830 and is dedicated to St. Martin. It is a plain parallelogram with a south porch. The font is of native elvan and it rests on a round shaft and four small pillars. The tower belonged to the former church. It consists of two stages, is 45 feet in height, and is finished with battlements and pinnacles. The belfry contains one bell, dated 1826. (Pictures of Parish church are hosted on Rootsweb/Ancestry, see welcome page)

There was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel at Newtown, a Bible Christian chapel at Tregiddon, and a United Methodist Free Church chapel at St. Martins Green. Newtown and St. Martins Green are the principal villages.

John Heath is the OPC for this parish and also has his own webpages associated with this project which include transcriptions of the Parish Registers. If you need any assistance with your research for this area please do contact John who will assist in any way that he can.

Baptisms: - Can be looked up on the LDS website using the IGI Index by entering surname, changing region to "British Isles", and then entering one of the following, in the batch number box. C021811, C021812, C021813 or C053211and press enter. These index entries are actual extractions from the Parish Records.

Marriages: - Phillimore's Marriage Transcripts are available on CD from Archive CD Books and UK Genealogy Archives. This covers the period from 1563 up to 1812.

Transcriptions on this site -- 1573 to 1812 and banns from 1860 to 1900

Burials: - Transcriptions can be found in the Cornwall OPC Database and images of Bishop's Transcipts and Parish Registers can be found on the Family Search website. Click on information to the left.

Other Information: - Please follow this link to see where Parish Registers are available for viewing and where, plus what is for sale.

Civil Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages began in England from July of 1837. Copies of certificates can be obtained from two sources, the central archive maintained by the General Register Office (GRO) or the Cornwall Registration Service. The information required to obtain a copy of a certificate is explained in detail. Also visit Mark Howells website for more information on ordering certificates and check Barbara Dixon's Tutorials for details on what information appears on birth, death and marriage certificates

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 was completed in 2008 for the 19th century and the links to the left lead to current records available online for St Martin. The whole database can be searched from the FreeCen home page which makes it easier to find those you are searching for.

Digital images of various census records are available from "Archive CD Books" who have put many of these records onto CD's through an agreement with "The National Archives" (formerly, The Public Record Office). Do visit there website for details on purchasing these CD's. Also available from Ancestry.com (requires subscription, annual or monthly) are images for download of the original census pages.

The 1901 and 1911 census both have their own webpages online and are searchable, although to get full access requires membership and fees to be paid.

The following are links to other resources for the Ruan Minor Parish:

Cornwall OPC Project - St Martin page
Genuki - St Martin page
Present day map of St Martin - On Google maps
St Martin on Wikipedia - includes church history, references and map showing all surrounding parishes
Pictures of Church - Outside and Inside
Cornwall Gravestones - Images of Gravestones in the St Martin Parish graveyard, 1st part, 2nd part and Cemetery near parish
Cornish Volunteer lookup library - includes records for St Martin and many other Cornwall Parishes.
Photos of St Martin Church - taken by Steve Beazley

An excellent Search Engine

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