cornwall family tales.
Ellis, Jenkin, Trevellick, Frost, Scilly Cornwall family history & genealogy.
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Cornwall & Isles of Scilly genealogy names.
 
Notes, Information, Stories and Anecdotes about the families included in this Cornwall & Isles of Scilly genealogy, plus help required with Cornish family history research.
 


 
Isles of Scilly
 
 
Depending on tides and the availability of a boat, Richard Harris Ellis sometimes waded, sometimes swam (with an oilskin of clothes on his head) from Tresco to Bryher when courting his future wife Emily Frost.
 
     
 
 
Cornwall
 
  CURGENVEN as a surname came into existence as an alias for an ancestor named LEAN, possibly as a corruption of an earlier name of VENVYN? or just to drop a common name of LEAN? There was nothing illegal in having an alias, some people were known by different names in different towns. Even today in English law there is nothing to prevent a person from having an alias - they can just proclaim it.  
too much for this page  More on Curgenvens
 

 
Isles of Scilly
 
 
As most family historians researching genealogy on the Isles of Scilly know, family history on these islands can be very hit and miss. No parish Registers survive from before 1726 and there are no Bishops Transcripts. Many people on the off islands were born, named "married" and died without the benefit of church service.
If your line includes Jenkin, Ellis, Woodcock or Hicks your search is even more difficult due to the preponderance of these names. My own line includes all of them!
When I was young (too young to be interested!) I was told by my Father how we are descended from the Godolphins and that somewhere along the line a shipwrecked Spanish sailor crept into the Family. I wish now that I had paid more attention to his tales of the family and island life.
     
 
Cornwall
 
 

Interestingly, from the Protestation Returns we can see that some of the names in our ancestry were very rare in the 1640's. In the whole of Cornwall ( sadly incomplete, see omissions ) there were only 2 Fulpets, 1 Kirken, 1 Travallack, no Moss / Morse & no Curgenven. This is not necessarily 100% accurate as some parishes only included Heads of households, most did not include females, and some people may have refused to sign, possibly due to religious concerns, abject poverty, or they may have been absent from their Parish for an extended period.
Cornwall Protestation Returns. T.L.Stoate, 1974, at CRO Truro

More - including the "Protestation Oath of 1641 "

 
     
Isles of Scilly
Ship-wreck of the SS Delaware in a winter storm, and our family's part in the heroic rescue using a six oared pilot gig.
Too long for this page go to -
ss Delaware Shipwreck Rescue





Isles of Scilly

Gold ! !    "The Welcome Stranger"

The largest Gold Nugget ever found was discovered by John Deason & Richard Oates in Australia in February 1869.
The nugget weighed 2284 ounces and was worth over £9000 (around £700,000 today)

John Deason was born on Tresco in 1829 to Thomas Deason and Elizabeth Jenkin his wife. These Deason's are quite possibly, no, probably related to this genealogy, one of my GGG-Grandmothers was Mary Deason born Tresco 1767.

Unfortunately due to the lack of records prior to 1726 (destroyed by fire) it is as yet impossible to confirm that the four recorded Deason families actively baptising children between 1727 - 1741 were related.
There were four Deason fathers, Thomas, John, Henry and Francis, they could have been brothers or cousins, thus linking all the Deason families on Tresco - but we may never know for certain. (also many children were born on the Islands without any record of birth or baptism being made)

 John Deason & Richard Oats
 
Isles of Scilly
 
  GGG-Grandmother Mary Jenkin (b. 1767 Tresco) was also known as "Aunt Polly". The term "Aunt" was often used on the off islands for the "wise women". These Aunts were midwives and healers, even performing tooth extractions.
On the mainland they were known by various names:- seeress, hedge witch, wita, wicce, these
wise women were often solitary practitioners of a spiritual profession, people in the countryside went to them for knowledge and healing that required psychic intuition. Traditional village wisecraft is the survival of fragmented beliefs and knowledge from an earlier archaic period, but not the survival of an organised universal cult with a priesthood or covens.

Account of the Isles of Scilly, R. Heath, 1750
     
Witchcraft in England. Christina Hole, 1947.             More about healers
The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe. Routledge, 1993.

 
     
       
Isles of Scilly
One of the staple crops on Scilly was the humble potato ( grown by most farmers & smallholders, including many in this family history ) Yet the government in 1916 were considering Potato crops on Isles of Scilly & Colorado beetle - first world war. using the Isles of Scilly as a breeding ground for the dreaded Colorado Beetle, presumably to be used as a weapon to destroy potato crops in Germany & occupied Europe. Fortunately for the islands this World War 1 plot was never implemented.
 
         
If you have any info or stories relating to this Cornwall & Isles of Scilly family history, please contact me.        
         
         
         

 
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