Alexander Bryant - fmfff - a miner

[Olde Crone]

I forgive you my child, do get up please.

Actually, I have many a time taken the wrong turning down the lanes, even though I travel them regularly!

Let me know if I can do any local sleuthing.

OC

Your Graciousness Overwhelms me Maam.
I love travelling little lanes OC and I was trying to bypass your mention of car boot sale as I LUV them too, the problem is, postage back to Aus costs me a motza.
Many thanks for the offer of sleuthing, when I get organized I'm sure I'll find something.
In 2009 I did a Backroads tour of Cornwall and luckily had a 2nd guide in training, who was a retired police inspector from the Met. While the main group went to view St. Michael's Mount, Andy took me looking for the church at St. Hilary/Goldsithney. He finally found it, but it was so difficult because from the distance you could see the church spire but it disappeared in the trees. Inside the church we met a lady changing flowers and I couldn't believe it when she said her grandmother was a Bryant. Andy took a photo of us and when we got back to the group, they reckoned they could see a resemblance !! We didn't find family headstones at St. Hilary, but did find a Rodda, a possible connection. We found a new Wesleyan Church at Goldsithney but could not find any other older churches.

[Olde Crone]

You perhaps should have looked at the parish church of Perranuthnoe, which is in Perranuthnoe village and is called (I think) St Pirans and St Michael. It is extremely old!

Perranuthnoe PARISH is like the centre hole in a horseshoe, the horseshoe itself being St Hilary parish. Depending on where you lived, you might attend anyone of a number of churches - St Hilary had daughter chapels here and there

OC

One of the things that I love about Cornwall is that the four family churches I have visited: St. Hilary (twice), Perranuthnoe (twice), Altarnun (twice) and St. Keverne (once) have all been open to view. St. Hilary has an amazing collection of art from the Newlyn school and Altarnun has an amazing Norman font and about 80 carved pew ends from the 1500s. At Perranuthnoe we found the headstone of Anna Bryant (Alexander's daughter-in-law who married Joseph) dated 1902 aged 83 yrs, buried with a son and her sister-in-law. The grave nextdoor has Mary wife of Robert Ford D 1868 aged 65 years. I'm not sure if this a sister-in-law or her mother giving birth at 15? (Anna Ford born 19.6.1818).

[Merry]

The reg district was Penzance and the subdistrict was called Marazion. There would generally be a registrar for each subdistrict, so people wouldn't have had to trudge to Penzance uless that was their subdistrict. There were 7 subdistricts to Penzance district: Hayle, Merazion, Penzance, St. Buryan, St. Just in Penwith, St. Ives and Uny-Lelant.

In the early days the registrar came to you anyway; it being their responsibility to collect the info, unless you felt inclined to be a responsible law abiding citizen and visit the registrar with your good or bad news!

That is very interesting Merry about the registrar coming to call. It would be great if you wanted to register, but if you didn't want to, you could always be out! What dates would that have covered please?

[Margaret in Burton]

Originally Posted by tenterfieldjulie

Sorry Merry, I should have read your 2# properly. You would understand I wasn't a teacher's pet at school with my inattention lol. Thank you for telling me.
I have visited the lovely village of Perranuthnoe which is on the coast. Then a few miles inland is Goldsithney which seems joined to St. Hilary with the church (very hard to find) down a tree smothered lane in between the villages. Penzance would be the closest centre for registration I imagine.

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

*Huffs*

Not difficult to find at all, I travel that lane every week in the summer to a large car boot sale at Rosudgeon.

Yes, PZ would have been the registration district.

OC

Julie, have you not seem my post #4?

The details for ordering the death cert. Penzance.

[Merry]

I can't remember offhand Julie. I would guess the responsibility may have gradually shifted (maybe in cities first moving through to towns and villages), though registration of deaths and births was not compulsory until 1875 (maybe it was still the registrars responsibility until then, in law if not in practice? I don't know). I think the government wanted to make the whole thing compulsory from the start, but had to back off due to people thinking they didn't want the state involved in their affairs and some objecting to the naming of children outside of a church.

I know I've seen letters in The Times newspaper complaining about the system. I think a lot of 'toffs' didn't like some upstart lower middle class office oik calling at their house and asking personal questions about the birth of their new baby!

Thanks Marg. The details you have supplied are great, as soon as I put money on my Debit Card I will order the cert. and then wait impatiently until it arrives!! I'm afraid I get so excited to read the posts, that I need to slow down and read them more carefully.
I love your comment about the "toffs" Merry .

[Olde Crone]

I've been off sulking as I typed a huge long post and then lost it.

1875 was when the responsibility switched from the registrar seeking and recording births and deaths, to the responsibility of the citizen to register births and deaths.

OC