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Devon - Genealogy

Devon Archives and Local Studies Research Guides

Devon Record Office's guidance for family historians.

The Genealogies pages are the main starting point in GENUKI/Devon for information relating to individual families: they list published and selected on-line narrative genealogical accounts, and provides links to town and parish pages containing further such accounts.

Devon-related Electronic Mailing Lists, etc. - a listing of the numerous means that exist of communicating electronically with others interested in Devon genealogy and family history.

The Devon Online Parish Clerks scheme, working in conjunction with the One-Place Studies Project, involves a set of volunteers who each take responsibility for a particular Devon parish, gathering information about it and providing advice and lookups based on this information. Further volunteers are welcome. (E-mail requests to OPCs should include "OPC (parish name)" in their subject line.)

The Future is Still in the Past: An Introduction to Online Parish Clerks - an article by Wayne Shepheard, published in Volume 7, Number 2 (Summer 2012) of Crossroads, the quarterly journal of the Utah Genealogical Association.

According to the current Wikipedia definition "One-place studies are a branch of family history and/or local history with a focus on the entire population of a single road, village or community, not just a single, geographically dispersed family line":

Devon Library Local Studies Service's extensive Family and population history pages (archived copy).

Devon Book Indexing Project - call for volunteers.

The Genogold web-site provides a database search facility based on contributed genealogical data, and allows people to add their email addresses to database records that are of interest to them. It is a general site, but much of its data relates to the West Country. (Currently - August 2017 - unavailable.)

Devon FHS Members' Surname and Placename Interests - (members only).

Devon FHS projects (in progress, and completed).

UKBMD "links to web sites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses. A wide range of other indexes and transcriptions are also available for most counties" - its Devon Section has over 200 links, but many of these are to general sites.

Devon section of UK Genealogy Archives - has pages for many Devon parishes with gazetteer transcripts and other information and useful links.

Devon section of the LDS Family Search Research wiki - provides a useful information page for each Devon civil parish, in particular detailing LDS resources available for that parish.  

Devon section of Cyndi's List of Genealogy links on the Internet - a very extensive and useful listing.

Debbie Kennett is running a Devon DNA Project, specifically a "a Y-DNA and mtDNA geographical project for everyone with a direct paternal or maternal ancestral line originating in the English county of Devon".

Kennett, Debbie. DNA Testing and the Devon DNA Project, Devon Family Historian, vol. 135, (2010) pp.15-18.

The Devon page of the World GenWeb project provides various "Devon query boards".

Visitation of the County of Devon in the Years 1531, 1564 and 1620 - online copy - provided by Hathitrust.

The Devon Heritage website provides articles, illustrations, and/or name listings for a small but growing number of Devon towns and parishes.

Shirley Turner's Guide for an Overseas Genealogist to Devon (archived copy).

Listing of some Devon Strays, by Shirley Turner.

Familypedia's listing (as yet quite short) of People Born in Devon.

Middle names, from all of Devon, other than Exeter and Plymouth, extracted from the IGI by Hugh Wallis.

Article on the Doone family of Exmoor, and R.D. Blackmore's famous book "Lorna Doone".

Pedigrees of families owning property in Devon and Cornwall, and others connected with them - a set of handwriten pedigrees by Loveday Sarah Gregor (ca.1762-1834) held at the Cornwall Record Office, and microfilmed by the LDS. Part 2 of this huge compilation has been digitised and so is available online. (It contains a name index starting at page 788.)

Booker, John. Common Form, South West Heritage Trust (2022) pp. [ISBN-978-1-3999-2625-6] ["This is a a formulary, for archivists and historians, of records frequently found in local reposories . . . as well as indicating defining phrases, the author discusses the historical significance of each record type because appearances can be deceptive." Intended to complement "Devon Deciphered".]

Brooker, John. Devon Deciphered: Interpreting Manuscript Sources, c. 1300-1750, Friends of Devon's Archives (2017) 108 pp. [ISBN-10-0995799407] [Uses examples chosen from Devon.]

Brown, M. Index to Devon's Adjacent Parishes, Dartmoor Press (c1996) 24 pp. [Index lists all of Devon's 473 "original" Parishes, and the Parishes adjacent to each.]

Colby, Frederick Thomas (ed). The visitation of the County of Devon in the year 1620 Harleian Society, London (1872) 396pp. [Internet Archive]

Few, Janet. From OPC to OPS: Putting your ancestors in their local context, Devon Family Historian, vol. 155, (2015) pp.15-17.

Harriman, Jenny. Publishing your own research: Part 1, Devon Family Historian, no. 187, (2023) pp.30. [Mentions the Batchelor, Finch, and Hines families as being subjects photo books produced by the author.

Lauder, Rosemary. Devon Families, Tiverton, Halsgrove (2002) 160 pp. [ISBN 1 84114 140 2] [Family names featured include: Acland, Amory, Bourchier Wrey, Buller, Carew, Cave, Chichester, Churston, Clifford, Courtenay, Cruwys, Clinton, Fortescue, Fulford, Fursdon, Gilbert, Hamlyn/Rous, Kelly, Lopes, Northcote, Parker, Pellew, Quicke, Seymour, Stuckley]

Lampert, J.E. An investigation of differentiation between Cornwall and Devon based on history, surnames, and Y-chromosomes. PhD Thesis, Univ. of Leicester. (Feb 2019) 243pp. [Full text]

Leetooze, Sherrell Branton. Putting the Flesh on the Bones of your Devon & Cornwall Ancestors: A source book for family researchers, (2000). [ISBN 0969878982] [Devon FHS Library 929.1/ENG-Dev]

Macdougall, Sally. Dating Family Photographs - Resources, Devon Family Historian, vol. no. 180, (2021) pp.40-42.

Neville, Julia. Devon in the 1920s, Devon Family Historian, vol. 172, (2019) p.8. [A DFHS Project.]

[Editor]. Postcards - The Edwardian Social Media of its day, Devon Family Historian, vol. 165, (2018) pp.44. [Includes example sent to A. Gilbert, HMS Russell, Devonport]

Raymond, S.A. South West Family Histories: Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Exeter, Devon, S.A. & M.J. Raymond (1998). 128p.

Summers, Peter G. and Titterton, John E., (Ed.). Hatchments in Britain (10 vols), London, Phillimore (1974-). [Devon is covered in vol. 7]

Tuckett, John. Devonshire Pedigrees: Recorded in the Herald's Visitation of 1620; With Additions from the Harleian Manuscripts, and the Printed Collections of Westcote and Pole. (1859-61) 220pp. [Full text - 1, Full Text - 2]

Williams, B.H. Ancient Westcountry Families and Their Armorial Bearings: A story of the old nobility and gentry of Devon and Cornwall, with notes on their lives, their manor-houses and their charities (Vol. I), 112A and 112B Market Jew Street, Penzance, J.A.D. Bridger (1916) 301 pp. [Vol 2. was never published] [Contents] [Index] [Now available on an Archive CD CD-ROM.]

Worthy, C. Devonshire Parishes: or the antiquities, heraldry and family history of twenty-eight parishes in the archdeaconry of Totnes (2 vols), Exeter, W. Pollard (1889). [Covers parishes in the archdeaconry of Totnes.] [Index] [Available on CD from Archive CD] [Full text of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2]

Google Groups - Devon-gen Mailing List, Devon Family Historian, no. 188, (2023) p.50.