Civil parishes in Wales

This table is intended to assist researchers looking for records in Wales. It shows all the archival pieces in the Welsh section of the 1921 Census of England & Wales; these run from south to north, from piece RG 15/26011 for Portskewett in Monmouthshire, to piece RG 15/27970 for Holyhead in Anglesey.

The 1921 Census is arranged primarily by Registration County and Registration District (RD). The RDs do not fit neatly into the network of ancient counties. Where only one county is shown in the County column, the Registration County and ancient county coincide. Where two counties are shown in the County column, however, the first will be the Registration County and the second will be the ancient county. In many of these cases, all the civil parishes covered are in an ancient county different to the county that would be suggested by the Registration County. The most striking of these is the cluster of civil parishes on the Isle of Anglesey which are covered by the Registration County of Caernarvonshire. However, you will see many instances of civil parishes in different ancient counties to the Registration County and even over the national border in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire or Shropshire.

The second point to note is that civil parishes are not the same as ecclesiastical parishes. The ecclesiastical parishes are those of the Anglican Church (Church in Wales). These are the ones with which family historians will be familiar from parish registers of baptism, banns, marriage and burial. By contrast, the civil parish is an entirely secular administrative district used in local government. Civil parishes and ecclesiastical parishes for approximately the same place may have completely different names and, of course, cover different areas on the ground. For example, in 1921 Caerphilly was within the civil parish of Eglwysilan and Port Talbot within the civil parish of Margam.

Civil parishes in cities are far less useful to a researcher than those in rural areas. For example, there are 130 pieces in RG 15 where the civil parish is Cardiff and 104 for Swansea. However, the civil parishes for the more sparsely populated rural districts can be extremely useful when narrowing down a search for an individual or family. For example, all of the civil parish of Conwil Gaio (Carmarthenshire) is contained within a single piece, RG 15/27292, and all of Cyfoeth-y-Brenin (Cardiganshire) is in piece RG 15/27471. Similarly, as a glance at the table below will show, some pieces contain two, three or more civil parishes in their entirety. For instance, piece RG 15/27224 includes all of the civil parishes of Reynoldston, Knelston, Penrice, Oxwich, Nicholaston, Penmaen, Cheriton and Llanmadoc on the Gower peninsula.

When you know or expect a person or family of interest to be residing in a particular civil parish, therefore, you might want to use this table to identify the piece number and then search using the piece number field on the 1921 Census advanced search screen. As an example, if you are looking for someone resident in Llanfihangel y Pennant (Merionethshire) in 1921, you know that, if they were indeed there, they will be found in piece 27777.

Spellings of civil parishes in the table below by and large accord with those given in the original records in RG 15 (as per the front cover boards). In a few cases, we have made modifications to spelling for clarification. Spellings may vary over time according to Welsh or English usage and according to orthography. If, however, you believe you see any errors or typos in the table below, please email stephen.rigden@findmypast.com so these may be corrected for the benefit of other researchers.