Great Cornish Families: A History of the People and Their Houses is a book by Crispin Gill, published in 1995. A second edition was published in 2011 (ISBN 978-0-85704-083-1). Crispin Gill, at the time of the book's publication, lived in Plymouth and was assistant editor of the Western Morning News. The book names many notable families that have featured prominently in Cornwall's history.

Gill's great families

Gill chooses the following families:

Additional families

Gill's list of important families not included above

In the introduction to ''Great families. . . '', the following additional potentially great families are mentioned. They were not included in the list as they were deemed by him to have failed to "found a dynasty":

Other

Deacon's list of important families

Bernard Deacon in his History of Cornwall (2007) suggests the following family names ("merchant bourgeois" who joined the "gentry" from the latter part of the 18th century): Williams, Bolitho, Fox, Davey of Redruth, Daniell of Truro, Harvey of Gwennap, Foster of Lostwithiel.

Landowners

Table of Principal Cornish Landowners, mid-nineteenth century (ranked) Source: Returns of owners of land in England & Wales – House of Commons Sessional papers 1872-3: paper No. 1874 lixxii, quoted in Edwin Jaggard Cornwall politics in the age of reform 1790–1855, (1999). *(Source: Who owns Britain ? by Kevin Cahill) (Based on Return of Owners of Land, 1873)