Monday, November 9, 2009

Proving 4x great grandparents

I am now back to the project that I want to complete before we have our trip to Salt Lake City. I discovered I have proven Joseph Blake, Joanna King, John Coleman and I was working on Elizabeth Pearce. I discovered that Elizabeth (Pearce) Coleman had remarried in 1781 (her husband was buried in 1780 at Upper Clatford. I suspect that they lived with Dinah (Bever) Coleman and that they were involved in running an Inn although I still have to ferret out those details. The Coleman family had an Inn at Goodworth Clatford in the late 1600s and on into the 1700s but I am not sure how long they were there yet. Still working on those details! Elizabeth married John Head in 1781 at Upper Clatford. The marriage registration lists her as a widow and I finally have now found her burial registration in 1823 at Upper Clatford and she was 85 years old. This works well back to the Elizabeth Pearce baptized at Collingbourne Ducis in 1737. This is one record that I need to look at when we are in Salt Lake City. I did do some photography of this register but I was looking for Farmer entries. Elizabeth Pearce's grandmother was likely Anne Farmer and so the story may start to come together for the Farmer family which married into the Lambden family and then into the Blake family. I was trying to place Isaac Farmer in Andover but the only really good match is at Collingbourne Ducis. I completed my proof for Elizabeth Pearce but with the stipulation that I need to verify the details on her baptism and her parentage which would appear to be William Pearce and Elizabeth Hapgood. Elizabeth is from Collingbourne Ducis and the daughter of Thomas Hapgood and Anne Farmer. If I can indeed prove this line then the linkage with the Farmer family is very intriguing. Isaac Farmer was orphaned by the time he was 7 years old but he signs his marriage registration with a firm hand and well rounded letters leading one to suspect that he was educated. I related earlier my suspicions on the Farmer family so will not expand on that thought at this moment in time.

I then moved on to my Knight 4x great grandparents. This has been something I have wanted to work on for awhile. I did not do any Knight research at Salt Lake City and will do that the next time. I have a lot of information from other researchers who link this family back to the Knight family at Shaftesbury and then Cann before that. I am still sitting at William Knight (burial at Winterborne Stickland is a W Knight in 1827 and the individual is 67 years old which would work well with the records that I have for him. There are not a large number of Knight families at Stickland and I more or less know each one there. The baptism that I am looking for is at Spetisbury. At Spetisbury in 1787 we have three Knight members listed on the Militia list - William Knight bricklayer, John Knight bricklayer, John Knight, servant bricklayer (apprentice perhaps). Possibly this is John Knight son of William Knight. Eleanor though the wife of Ellis (son of William above) is the daughter of John Knight who is a bricklayer. Are they first cousins? Family lore says that they are first cousins. William Knight and Mary Dashwood at Shaftesbury (and the Knight family is not there after the 1860s when they are found at Spetisbury) had sons William, Samuel, George, John, and Thomas. Ideally I would be looking for this William to have sons William and John and indeed they do. But is this John the father of Eleanor who married Ellis the son of William. That I am still not sure about. The difference in their station continues to plague me - John was a bricklayer and William was an agricultural labourer. I need some interesting entry that relates them so that I can actually say that they are both the sons of William Knight the bricklayer. I have started entering my proofs for them. This is my grandfather Samuel Blake's line back (his 2x great grandparents). I have thus far proven four of the sixteen. I have evidence to complete John Butt, Jane Durnford, William Arnold and Elizabeth Malton. That brings me half way. I need to add to my Knight data which is four more (two Knight and one each Ellis and Vincent). The Farmer line I do have information on the likely father of Isaac and his name was John. I have no idea of his mother's name at the moment. The Lambden line I have information on Nathanael but I am not sure that the Nathanael baptized at Bradfield Berkshire is him and need to look at the other Nathaniel baptized in this time period in Berkshire. He was not baptized at St Mary Bourne. The wife of Nathanael Lambden is thus far unknown beyond the forename of Sarah and her burial in 1797 at Andover Hampshire.

Today I am having my eyes tested and more on that later. I have been meaning to upgrade my glasses for awhile but at $200 a lens I need to contemplate it for awhile! I think they need to be a little stronger perhaps in the reading portion. Although I am reading this quite well at 18 inches from the computer. We will see!

I shall dedicate another day to my grandfather's 2x great grandparents as that should permit me to add all the proofs and images to my Legacy file. Then I shall move on to my grandmother Blake's families. I will prove her "natural" parent line Cotterill (I am missing one of her 2x great grandmothers) but I want to find the grandparents of her adopted father William Taylor and perhaps beyond if I am lucky. The researcher who is doing this line has not gone beyond what I have done thus far. Perhaps she will later and she lives in England so has easier access to the registers. For her mother's line I will be able to prove those eight lines as I have collected all the evidence.

For my maternal grandfather I have the proofs for all sixteen of his 2x great grandparents. I collected all of that information (which I didn't have already) when we were at Salt Lake City last time. For my maternal grandmother I still have the problem of using family lore to connect my Ellen Taylor (her mother) back to her parents. If that connection is true then I have the proofs for five out of eight. On my grandmother's father's side I have the proofs for four out of eight. I need to work on the Cheatle lineat the 4x great grandparents but I have the fiche for that. For my Christopher Buller's parents I do not have even an inkling at this point in time. Another line to research at Salt Lake City.

That means I will work on the Pearce family at Abbotts Ann/Collingbourne Kingston, Collingbourne Ducis to find William Pearce my 5x great grandfather and his line. I will work on the Knight family to sort them out. I will work on the Farmer family at Collingbourne Ducis - I have some information on them already that I need to sort. I will work on the Lambden family in Berkshire. I will look at my paternal Grandmother's natural parentage at the 5x great grandparent level. I will seek out the family of William Taylor (her adopted father). I want to do more work on the Charley family at Kentisbear Devon. I have a few 5x great grandparents in my mother's that are known and I need to check the registers for their parents information.

I shall soon start to build my excel file for Salt Lake City. I have one created that includes the itens that I set aside last time and I will add more items to it. I know that I can look at about 40 to 50 films if I control my day very well. I am more experienced with the camera which will help and I will repeat the few pictures that are blurry and I really want to have a good copy. Quite often the ones that were blurry were not a problem for me.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the West Hampshire Tax Subsidy as I had copied about 30 pages when we were at Salt Lake city. I am producing an excel file that I can sort by surname, forename, year or place. I have a number of Hampshire ancestors who are listed in this set of records. Since I did not have eye drops I could spend the rest of the day working - a real surprise.

My new glasses will be ready in a couple of weeks and will be a change. They are not big round lenses this time but rather more of an oblong shape. I tried them out for a bit and quite liked them.

Tomorrow I will continue with the Tax Subsidy for West Hampshire.

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