COLWILL/COLWELL Cornwall/Devon Border-help gratefully received

[UpstairsDown]

After some success with a family tree for my Grandfather last year I have been working on the maternal side and I think my o'er vaulting ambition has over leaped itself.

I'm currently looking for any information on the ancestors of William Colwill/Colwell, baptised in St Germans in 1816, with his parents being Richard Colwell (1776-1848) also born in St Germans and Mary Sambles/Samuels, born in 1786. The problems start with Richard- it was only after some searching that I realised the marriage was down in the Parish registers as Corwell, rather than Colwell, as are several of the baptisms for the couple's children.

To complicate matters further at least 2 of the daughters of Richard and Mary have the name Corwell on their marriage entries for the parish registers and Mary's death certificate lists her as "Mary Corwell", too. I know the spelling should probably be Colwill, as searches in and around St Germans show no other Corwell family members previous or subsequent to Mary and Richard's marriage. William himself is listed as both Colwell and Colwill on subsequent census returns before the family finally settle on Colwill as a spelling in the 1860s.

So, my challenge is can anyone help me figure out where on earth Richard has come from ? I know there are records for Colwells/Colwills in St Germans as early as the 1590s.  The family seem to be a fairly stolid, calm bunch with everyone being agricultural labourers, aside from 2 domestic servants and a police officer (William's nephew). I'm stumped as to where to look next- I've run the usual searches on the usual sites, checked various monument databases and even tried the Great Weston newspaper catalogue online.

I'm fairly new at this so I am certain the users on this board will be hopefully be able to help me dismantle this brickwall because, quite frankly, I'm stumped!

[fizzix]

Hi
have you seen the Rame Peninsula site http://www.stoneyburn.ca/OPC_Web/index.php which has a lot of the parish registers for St Germans & other parishes transcribed, really useful.

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but there is a Richard Coliver b. 17/10/1776.

Possibility as they hadn't decided how to spell their name! 

[UpstairsDown]

Fizzix,

First of all please forgive me for taking so long to reply!

I have seen the Rame peninsula site, but thankyou for the link!

I might have a look at this Coliver chappie as he didn't show up on my Cornwall-OPC search for some reason!

Many thanks! It is a maddening conundrum.

[Rustyrex]

Hello,
 We are decended from the some of the Colwell/Colwill family of Cornwall and Devon, specifically the Poundstock and Week St. Marys areas, through Thomas Colwell.  We live in the United States, and have been doing research on the Colwell family, as this was my grandmother's line on dads side.

[cousinjack]

Hello

There were also Colwills in Whitstone, the adjoining parish to Week St Mary. I am related to Thomas, who lived there in the 18th century.

[dukewm]

Hello RustyRex & CousinJack,

Would either of you happen to have traced your Colwells back into the early 1700's ?

I am searching for JANE COLWELL who (may have) married WILLIAM DOWNING in 1784 and they ended up in Co Londonderry, Ireland, but she (or an earlier generation) may have emigrated from Cornwall/Devon.

The parents of both of these individuals are unknown.

If you know of a website or source that accesses the Parish Registers you mentioned, please let me know.
Poundstock
Week St. Mary
Whitstone
(or all of the Cornwall/Devon Parishes for that matter)

I am always willing to share data.

Thank you and have a good day,
Rick T

[cousinjack]

Hi Rick

I can go back to John Colwill (b Whitstone 1730), father Thomas, mother Elizabeth. I haven't found a Jane.

Good sources are -

IGI batch searches compiled by High Wallis - you can search births and marriages by parish by surname. Go to http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm and follow the instructions.

Cornwall online Parish Clerks at http://www.cornwall-opc.org/ and find the parish you are interested in. They are mostly very helpful, and know a lot about their parish.

Other than these free online sources, there are transcriptions of a number of parish records available from the Cornish Family History Society, and of course archive records held by the Cornish Records Office in Truro.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Cousin Jack

[dukewm]

Thank you Cousin Jack.
I will check your sources out.

Rick T

[JaneyCanuck]

Something that may support that Coliver theory ...

In baptisms at the Corwall OPC site, St Germans baptisms, first that Richard:

- 1776, parents William and Grace COLIVER

Then, searching baptisms in St Germans 1760-1790, for baptisms with parents William and Grace:

Mary COLLIVER 1772
Mary COLLIVER 1774
> (Richard Coliver 1776)
Thomas COLWELL 1778
Joan COLLAVER 1784

William Colliver and Grace Gibbons married in St Germans in 1771.
The database contains no William Colwell/Colwill + Grace marriage.

In St Germans baptisms,
- 1795 and 1804 there are baptisms to two unmarried Ms. Collivers
- 1808 to 1816 there are baptisms to Thomas Colliver and Susannah
- 1834 to 1838, there are baptisms to Thomas Colliver and Grace

Now, there are also numerous Colwell and Colwill couples baptising children there over the decades.

There are William Colliver baptisms in Tywardreath in 1733 and 1746.
Also a William Colwill baptism in Tremaine in 1753.
There is a William Colwell baptism in St Germans in 1755, parents Richard and Mary. (Also Elizabeth Colwell, same parents' names, 1744, buried 1764.)

Is it possible that the Col* baptisms in the 1770s and 1780s are all to the same couple, and Thomas Colwell was actually the odd one out, and the family surname was really Coliver/Colliver but got mutated to Colwell in his case (and maybe others in later life)?

Or conversely, was William Colwell baptised in 1755 the William Coliver who married in 1771 and Colwell was the original name?

Colliver burials in St Germans are William 1795 (55), Grace 1795 (50)and Thomas 1811 (3).
No Colwells to match any of the names above.
(The only Grace Gibbons baptism in the database was 1746 Morval, which matches that burial.
The William Colliver burial would match the William Colwell baptism if it was quite a late baptism ... There is no William Col* baptism circa 1840 in the database.)


(I was initially curious because I have a similar surname variant, with the l/r confusion: Fallowell comes out as Farrowell in some records, e.g. the mother's surname on my gr-grmother's birth cert, and the Farrowell spelling survived in one instance and went to Australia. )