Place:Grade, Cornwall, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Grade from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales: "GRADE, a parish in Helston [registration] district, Cornwall; on the coast, near the Lizard, 9½ miles SSE of Helston, and 14½ SSW of Falmouth [railway] station. Post town: Ruan-Minor, under Helston, Cornwall. Acres: 1,981; of which 35 are water. Real property: £1,852. Population: 327. Houses: 69. The property is divided among a few. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Ruan-Minor, in the diocese of Exeter. Value: £334. Patron: the Rev. F. Jackson. The church contains brasses and monuments of the Eriseys; and was recently in a very dilapidated condition." Grade was an ancient parish near the Lizard Peninsula of the south coast of Cornwall, England. It was located in the Kerrier Hundred and from 1894 until 1934 in the Helston Rural District. In 1934, because of falling population in the area, it merged with its neighbouring parishes of Ruan Minor and Ruan Major to form the civil parish of Grade Ruan.

Further discussion about the community following 1934 will be found under Grade Ruan.

Research Tips

Above: Map from Wikimedia Commons produced by Andy F

One of the many maps available on A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Cornwall at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets.

The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases.

• Repository:Cornwall Record Office
• Repository:Cornish Studies Library
• Repository:Cornwall Family History Society
• Repository:Cornwall Online Parish Clerks
• Repository:Cornwall Online Census Project
• Repository:West Briton Transcripts Database (Transcriptions from a Cornish newspaper of 1836-1887)

• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Cornwall as well as providing 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
• FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/CON/Jacobstow