Hello Russell,
I don't know where you were looking for a birth record for 1841, but it
sounds as though it was the IGI. There are in fact likely to be two
separate records of your ggg-grandfather in 1841, neither of which will
be in the IGI.
Statutory registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and
Wales began in 1837, so for dates after that you can write to the local
registrar and order a copy of the birth certificate - assuming it
existed - unfortunately it was not compulsory to register at that time,
nor for some years afterwards. As there is no longer a local Registrar
at Corwen, you would have the problem of trying to trace which Registrar
might now be holding the registers of interest to you. The eldest sister
of my g-grandmother was born in Corwen in 1842, and I wrote to the
Registrars at both Ruthin and Wrexham, and when neither of them had it -
nor could suggest anywhere else - I gave up and assumed that she (like
my great-grandfather in Llanrwst in 1849) had never been registered.
Then I went to visit a third cousin who is descended from the person in
question, and to my surprise he had got the certificate from Bala! As
you know both parents' names, it is probably better in this case to
order the certificate from the central source - see
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/registration/certificates.asp
If you include the parents' names you should get the right certificate.
The other possible source of a record relating to his birth is a
christening record if he was a member of a church or chapel. The parish
records continue after 1837, but you would probably need to go to Wales
yourself to see them, or ask someone there to do it for you. In the case
of Corwen the parish registers are at the Merioneth Record Office at
Dolgellau, and if you look at
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/MER/MER_PR.html
you will see that there are birth records in Corwen for 1719-1963. Of
course these are only records from the Church in Wales, and if your
ancestors were Non-Conformists, you would have to look further for the
relevant Registers. A page near the one where you got the information
about the townships of Corwen may tell you which denominations were
active in the area. Some Non-Conformist registers are to be found at the
National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth.
Corwen is indeed a small town, and is now part of the parish called
Corwen and Llangar with Gwyddelwern and Llawrybetws. Look at the Church
in Wales pages about Parochial and Clerical Information at
http://www.eglwysyngnghymru.org.uk/rb/CINWALES.HTM
for an explanation of how the parish system works nowadays.
Hope this helps,
Best wishes,
Ann
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Ann Macdonald Watt
Edinburgh
Scotland
email: ann(a)met.ed.ac.uk
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