Gwent Record Office is the archives office for the historic county of Monmouthshire, although the Church in Wales have deposited some of its original records with the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth.

The Record Office is located at County Hall on the outskirts of Cwmbran, and our separate page provides local information on how to get there by road, bus or train (use your browser's back button to return here after viewing). Accommodation space in the Search Room is limited, so it is always advisable to book beforehand, even if you don't require a viewer - for details of their phone number and opening times, please see the separate Gwent Record Office web-site (this will open in a new window, which you will need to close to return here after viewing, as you will with the following site).

Newport Central Reference Library in John Frost Square has an extensive Family History section, including the GRO indexes of births, marriages and deaths and the 1881 census index for England & Wales, both on microfiche the census returns for Monmouthshire on microfilm. They also hold on their shelves a selection of Parish Register transcripts for Newport, and Street Directories and Electoral Registers covering a wide period. Their facilities are heavily used so again you need to ring beforehand to book a machine.

PRE TWENTIETH CENTURY PARISHES

To locate a Parish that existed within Monmouthshire before the twentieth century, look at the separate page giving a full List of Parishes. This List also shows which Registration District and Sub-District each parish came under, from 1852 onwards, so that you can find the place concerned more easily in the census returns. Before the Districts were reviewed in 1851, Bedwellty wasn't a Registration District, merely a Sub-Division of Abergavenny Registration District

REGISTRATION DISTRICTS/SUB-DISTRICTS

The Lydney Sub-District of Chepstow and the Coleford Sub-District of Monmouth consisted entirely of parishes in the county of Gloucestershire; similarly, the first 6 parishes in the Dingestow Sub-District of Monmouth were in Herefordshire. None of these have been included in the List of Parishes, nor have the handful of other parishes which were part of Monmouthshire Registration Districts but which lay outside the county border, such as Tidenham which is in Gloucestershire but was part of Chepstow Sub-District. Exceptions to this general rule have been made in the cases of Fwthwg and of Llanfedw: these are two "places" which are outside Monmouthshire (the first in Herefordshire and the second in Glamorganshire) but which are hamlets attached to Monmouthshire parishes (Cwmyoy and Michaelstone-y-Fedw, respectively).

Conversely, parishes in Monmouthshire which were part of Registration Districts of other counties have naturally been included: Rumney and St Mellons (both in Cardiff Registration District), and Grosmont and Llangua (both in Dore Registration District, in Herefordshire).

PLACENAMES, VILLAGES AND DISTRICTS

If you can't find the place you're looking for in the List of Parishes, try looking at our secondary page giving a List of Other Placenames in Monmouthshire which we have also compiled. This gives alternative names which were sometimes used for places, and differences in spelling, most of which originate from the anglicising of the original Welsh placename - in particular, the Welsh "f" and "dd" sounds were often replaced by the English equivalent sounds of "v" and "th". Other differences arise from the fact that parish names are the ones used by the Church, and so they may not be spelt exactly the same as the administrative name of an area (and sometimes may have a completely different name).

The List of Placenames also includes the names of local areas or districts, villages and hamlets that were part of larger parishes in the nineteenth century. Geographically, the eastern half of Monmouthshire is comparatively flatter and mainly agricultural (and more anglicised in its nature); historically, it was where most of the population originally lived and so it consisted of a large number of small parishes. The mountainous western half, on the other hand,("the valleys") was originally more sparsely populated. But that was before the explosive growth which took place from the middle of the nineteenth century, as a result of the South Wales Iron & Steel and Coal Industries exploiting the natural resources of the area. Consequently, the western half consisted of very few parishes each covering a large area: Mynyddislwyn, Bedwellty, Aberystruth and Trevethin, the first two being divided up into hamlets. The multitude of villages which mushroomed to house the colliers and iron & steel workers within these valley parishes were not parishes in their own right initially, and so will only be found on this secondary page.

We have come full circle, because the modern structure of historic Monmouthshire is now made up of benefices, each of which may comprise one or more parishes. In recent years certain parishes have lost their individual identity, having been amalgamated into a larger "Rectorial Benefice". To discover the current parochial structures, go to the Church in Wales web site.