Thanksgiving

My weekend since coming home from Cape Cod disappeared rapidly. We had Thanksgiving here and there were the four of us plus the two dogs. We had a grand time and the bird looked very Thanksgiving like. I made a bean salad of which I am very fond, plus jellies (orange and cranberry), carrots and onions, salad tray and dip, cheese puff pastries, jam tarts, baked potatoes and yam, and then a pumpkin pie. The bird was stuffed with a bread stuffing and a sausage stuffing. The dogs enjoyed their share of thanksgiving meat as well.

I worked away on Henry Beard's will (four full pages) and completed the 191 lines of transcription. I have meant to do it for awhile and it was interesting. I had skimmed through it finding that he was the father of Mary Beard married to Christopher Buller when I first purchased it. However, it answers a number of questions about Henry Christopher Buller the only living son of Christopher and Mary Buller. When I find him in the early 1830s married to Sophia Scroope they are living on Lamb Conduit Way and he has a pork butcher shop there (purchased now I am sure by the trust in his grandfather Henry Beard's will). I wasn't sure before whether he had married into the Welch family and acquired his Butcher Shop in that way but this has clarified that completely. I am hoping that I might learn more about the Buller family through the Scrooby family that he married into. Neither child appears to have survived from the Henry and Sophia marriage and Sophia had died by 1838 when Henry remarried as a widower at Edgbaston (Anne Welch daughter of William Welch). That has certainly answered all the questions about Henry that I had hanging about with regard to his being a widower. I notice this surname (Scrooby) is quite rare when I check it out on the surname profiler.

Today I have completed the will of Henry Beard and then worked on the will of Jane Buller (Henry's widow) which continues with interesting information on Christopher Buller. I also now have the married names (including husband's name) of the two sisters of Mary Beard - Sarah and Elizabeth. Sarah married Michael Jacob Denner (also a slopcutter) listed as a Gentleman of the Isle of Dogs. Elizabeth (now widow) had married William Millin. Again the setting up of a Trust for the children of Mary Beard is paramount in her will which is not probated until 5 Jan 1822 although written in 1817. The burial that I found in the non parochial registers in 1821 is quite likely her burial. I must purchase the record in the near future. In her will she asked to be buried at Burnhill Fields in London.

I have a third will for the Beard family - Richard Beard who died in 1823. I had purchased it hoping to discover if he would mention any brothers as the individual who originally sent me the excerpt from Henry Beard's will that mentioned Christy Buller has Henry with two brothers (Richard and Edward) and one sister Sarah. I have not yet been able to verify this information as Henry does not mention any brothers. Richard's will mentions his children (and wife but not by name) Joseph George, John William, Ann Elizabeth and James Charles. Interesting to find them all with second names. Richard would appear to be a baker by trade.

Tomorrow I have to have my permanent cap put on but I will probably work on some transcriptions as I get used to the new tooth!