1604 Land Survey of Bewcastle-Cumberland-UK

I spent yesterday creating an excel file for the 1604 Land Survey of Bewcastle, Cumberland, UK. Bewcastle was the home of my 3x great grandparents Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge. They were both baptized at Bewcastle in 1763 (Thomas 25 July and Elizabeth 27 August). Thomas' parents were Henry Routledge (baptized Bewcastle 30 Jul 1720) and Margaret Tweddle (baptized Lanercost 6 Mar 1728) and Thomas was born at Borderigg. Elizabeth's parents were George Routledge and Grace Routledge. George was born at Todhills (baptized Bewcastle 17 Apr 1729) and Grizzel (Grace) was born at Oakshaw (baptized Bewcastle 6 Dec 1741) and Elizabeth was born at Raw. Thomas and Elizabeth were second cousins once removed. Grace was the daughter of Henry's brother Thomas and his wife Elizabeth Storye. Although I can work my way back in this family into the late 1600s, early 1700s linking back further has a few difficulties.

Using the Parish Registers for Bewcastle gives you a likely path back to the 1660s but the next set of records back is the Protestation Returns for Bewcastle which list 28 Routledge males over the age of 18: 1 Adam, 1 Bartholomew, 1 Christopher, 3 Edward, 1 Francis, 2 George, 1 Gilbert, 1 James, 1 Michael, 1 Nicholas, 1 Quintin, 1 Richard, 1 Rowland, 4 Thomas and 3 William. The list does not provide any details on whether these are children of/parent of making it interesting but useless for genealogical purposes. However, the 1604 Land Survey is another story. It does provide the names of the Fathers of individuals who are tenants on the land to which their father holds title. There are, interestingly enough, 56 Routledge names on this list at Bewcastle. Family Lore says that during the reign of James I (VI of Scotland) the Border Reivers were heavily punished (hung!) and their land stripped from them. A number of them fled to Ireland to escape. The decrease in numbers in just 37 years would appear to indicate that something had happened.

On the Land Survey we find: Adam with son Adam; Allen with son John; Andrew with sons Adam, Archibald, James, John and Thomas; Archibald with son William; George with sons James, Jerrat, and Quintin; James with sons Adam, James, Thomas and William; Jarret with son Thomas; Jeffery with sons Richard and Thomas; John with sons Clement, Cuthbert, George, Jerrat, Quintin, Thomas and William; Martin with son James; Nicholas with son Edward; Quintin with sons Andrew, Francis, John, and Simon; Richard with sons George, Jenkin, and John; Robert with son Jock; Rowland with sons Anthony, Cuthbert and Edward; Thomas with sons Richard and William, and William with sons Alexander, Edward and John.

The problem would be that all of these sons are likely 20 or more in 1604 making them in their 60s in 1641-42 when the Protestation Returns are written. I am using wills but it is a slow process transcribing them in order to put these various lines together. Do they all lead back to one MRCA? That remains to be seen. My cousin thinks so and we continue looking for data to take us back to the 1400s when the first reference to a Routledge (Simon) is found.

I also read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in anticipation for the movie release due to come on the 15th of July here.

Tomorrow the plan is to get back to the transcriptions. I was distracted from that today by the release of the Tithe Apportionment database prepared by the Friends of the Devon Archives. I spent several hours looking at the data and quite tired my eyes out. It is interesting seeing all of my Pincombes there, plus cousins Rowcliffe, Charley, Rew and others.