MIlwaukee Public Library and Family History

I spent all day Monday at the Milwaukee Public Library in their Family History Section. An excellent source for people doing their genealogy. I was looking in particular for Kipp and Mead. I made a couple of discoveries that will be helpful. First of all the Mead descendants appear to be from the Irish Mead family. Eliminating lines is sometimes as good as finding them.

The rest of the week has been very busy with reading a number of books.

Hampshire Genuki webpages and continuing transcription

Ken Greenslade has agreed to take on the Hampshire Genuki webpages. He has been very efficiently and effectively doing the Church Database for Hampshire and will now take on the entire set of Hampshire Genuki webpages. Although I loved doing them, they are beyond my capabilities these days with the new web pagery. My talents are now archaic!

I have taken on Regional Representative for the Eastern Canadian Region of the Guild of One Name Studies. I am looking forward to this new challenge and being in my area will be easier to handle. Doing the Hampshire pages from afar and having them look the way that I would like was not possible for me and it is good to step back and let someone else who can do a better job do so.

I completed Parish Register Three of Andover and there are 3694 burials in almost 100 years (they began in 1587. Looking forward to Parish Register Four I discovered that the burials in woolen are now being recorded from August 1678 on so will be able to pick up the information that I could not read on the last couple of years of the Parish Register Three burials. That is good news for me as there was a Robert Blake who died and perhaps there will be a little more information on him in this register. I will begin Parish Register Four in the new year.

I have a number of tasks that I want to take on over the next month including planning for Christmas and knitting new dog sweaters. The time will pass quickly I am sure. I also want to begin working on the conversion of the Bishops Nympton Parish Register to an excel file (some done already) and I have a couple of email requests to answer on this register.

I also want to pull the Cardinal Points for St Mary's Andover, St Mary's Abbots Ann, All Saints Upper Clatford and a couple more registers that I have for this area. That way if a Marriage Challenge can ever be undertaken I will have given the individual at the Guild a head start in those particular parishes and I have the offer of another local parish from another Guild member. We will have a good set ready although there are 33 parishes in that particular Registration District but mostly small as it is a rural area. I feel proud to be able to say that from first hand knowledge as we spent a little time there in the last couple of years.

My Blake famly is ever my interest and a Heraldry lecture by the Registrar of the Canadian Heraldic Institute has me thinking about having a coat of arms for our family. We need to think about whether we would each like to have one that we then combine by quartering for our daughters or start with ours combined and then our daughters can do whatever they like in the future.

Rainy here today in Ottawa and it looks more and more like snow. We have had our first snowfall already but often it is mid December before it accumulates. Then it stays with us until early April although last year was an unusual one with no snowfalls particularly after mid January.

Andover Parish Records - 16 November 2010

Continuing on today with the Andover Parish Records and I have now reached January 1679 with 3523 burials now in the file. There were 5387 baptisms by this date but I have a large gap now in the burials which I do hope suddenly appear on one of the fiche. More Blake burials including two John Blake with the notation that one was at Charlton. There was also a Robert Blake and several wives (Jone and Margery married to other Blake members) but not an Ann Blake yet (Ann was the wife of William Blake who died in 1697 and a potential ancestor).

Once I have all the burials then I can again start to look at the wills and see if they will help me to sort out the Blake lines in this time period at Andover. There are not actually a lot of them contrary to the usual opinion on the Blake family at Andover. I went into this expecting to never sort out the 1600s but now as I collect the data on the Blake family it does seem to be within my reach to sort them out. Having only the family lore that an ancient ancestor died at Old House I continue to plunge backwards in time into the 1600s. The last person to hold Old House was William dying in 1607. It doesn't appear to be mentioned again in the wills. It was a heap of stones when my Grandfather remembered it and not much better when his father first saw it I gathered. But that was already the mid 1800s and a lot can happen to a house in two hundred years!

Although the history of this Blake family has been published a number of times I have deduced that there are inaccuracies in this data (genealogy is interesting in that way; you can find all sorts of information sometimes on your families but then new information becomes available and you realize that the earlier investigator took the wrong track!) and have now taken my line back only to the 1600s while I delve into the possibilities of my line going back to Nicholas who died at Old House and is said to be my ancient ancestor by family lore.

The names of some of the old families are dying out and new ones are arriving although slowly. I recognize some of them as being from Abbotts Ann, Kimpton and Upper Clatford.

I seem to be between and betwixt these days as I am withdrawing from some projects and becoming more involved in others. I would like to work on my CG now and need to update my CV again for that. Not sure why I want to do that but if I am going to become involved in projects then I think that readers deserve to see that I do have the background to do some of the work that I am presenting.

Andover Parish Records - 15 November 2010

I continued working on the Andover Parish Records and have reached August 1674 with 3152 burials now completed. There is an enormous gap in the burial records similar to the marriages (baptisms are fairly complete) from 1658 to 1673. It is unfortunate that they are missing and I hope they might turn up on another page somewhere.

A couple of interesting Blake burials that I didn't have before although they do not affect my direct line.

We also made it out for a long walk today which was very nice. I love to walk but we do not manage that every day.

I will continue working on the transcriptions as I would like to finish the burials this week and there are only 14 images left to do so that I rather think I can complete this section quite nicely.

Parish Registers Transcriptions continuing for Andover

Now that I have finally reached 1653 the reading is easier. 1642 to 1652 were really difficult and a lot of blanks. 1646 to 1652 are almost non-existent but then perhaps no one was buried - probably not the case but it could be that there were only a few.

I am up to 3030 burials now as of September 1656. Same time period for baptisms there were 3618 - a good healthy sign for Andover. The names were fairly consistent in the early part of the register but a lot of new names now. The handwriting right now is quite nice but I remember that as the time passed into the 1660s the handwriting was not quite so good for the baptisms and marriages. Wait and see though as this does not appear to be the same hand writing as the baptisms. Perhaps there were two priests at Andover.

We baked a pound cake today which smelled wonderful whilst it was cooking. I must bake some more. I do not want to eat too much of it but it is better to have my relatively plain cooking for my husband than rich gooey commercial desserts!

We are working on our excel file of our pictures from the Maritimes now. The European pictures are all labeled. I am looking forward to seeing them on the television set. The videos are especially good. We just have five days left to go of the Maritime trip and then everything has been labeled. Working through them like that lets you enjoy your vacation once again. Cameras are such a good idea and camcorders especially so.

No Blake surprises yet at Andover. I wonder who Hercules Blake is at Enham. I suspect he descends from Robert Blake's line but will try to work that out when I do all the will transcriptions that I have.

Remembrance Day and continuing transcription of Andover Parish Registers

We were downtown at the National War Memorial for Remembrance Day today along with about 30,000 other people. It was nice to see so many. I can remember years when there were just a few and we had a front row seat looking at the War Memorial. I do not mind that we no longer do as it is so nice to see so many people there.

The parade was right in front of us as they traveled towards the Valiants Statues beside the War Memorial. We couldn't see the new Governor General but the reviewing stand was about half of a block away from us.

We then joined the lineups to leave our poppy on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. As always it was well covered and we were at the first year when the spontaneous leaving of the poppy first occurred. I hope it continues thus.

Then back home to work on the transcriptions and I am into the burials now. This will be difficult and there are many blank spots and partial names. There were 2257 burials up to the end of 1641. I am now at 2824 but it has been a slow transcription. This is a very necessary part of the transcription with respect to the Blake burials in order to determine that the John Blake that is the father of Thomas Blake did indeed survive childhood. The other alternative is Thomas Blake son of John Blake a brother to William Blake (Clerk and the father of John) which would work quite well and I can not think why I bypassed him earlier. Once I have determined that either / or of being buried or living to adulthood then back to the wills to see if John left one.

I will continue with transcriptions tomorrow of the Burial Register. I may start working on another project as well to save my eyes as this is very difficult transcription.

Flu shot and continuing transcription of the Parish Registers of Andover

We went and got our flu shots today and it was amazingly quick. No lineups when we were there. That was a first for us although I used to get mine at the hospital when I worked there and I went first thing in the morning and usually no lineups.

I am continuing with the Andover Parish Registers and have completed the marriages up to 1687 where they cease on this third Parish Register. They end mid year though so suspect I will find the rest of the year further on. There are now 1243 marriages in a one hundred year period since the registers began in 1587. There is a large chunk missing though for marriages as mentioned yesterday. I shall investigate whether the Bishops Transcripts have these missing marriages. It would be nice to have them in the transcription if they exist.

The remaining images on the fiche for the third Parish Register are burials I think. There can always be surprises but the heading is there for the Burialls beginning in 1642. This will be a long haul working my way through them just as it was for the baptisms. With the large section missing in the marriage register portion I am through this section much quicker than I thought that I would be.

I haven't heard back from the person who took on the Church Database for Hampshire Genuki webpages but I want to give him a couple of weeks to think about it and hopefully write to Phil to ask him his thoughts. I will try over the next couple of days to correct the errors that have crept in over the last year but some of them are quite beyond me. I need to write the person who donated the CMB information to see if I can pass her work to the OPC Hampshire site. That would be the easiest way to handle the information. I should have done that before but I must admit I became confused and thought I had asked her and she said no she wanted them on the Genuki. I will ask her again though and see. That would eliminate most of the errors actually.

Then I want to draft a newsletter on the Guild of One Name Studies and my taking over as the Regional Representative for the Guild in Eastern Canada. I think it will be most interesting and I am looking forward to doing it. I have put a lot of energy into Genuki in the past but the pages do not reflect my effort and I can not really add much more since I do not live there. It really needs to be someone who lives there although I didn't think so initially.

Long Term Care meeting and continuing with the Andover Parish Registers

We attended a meeting on Long Term Care and financial implications of Long Term Care versus Senior Citizen Residency. Our plans are to stay in our house for another ten years but it is good to stay abreast of all the options. Now that my sprained knee has recovered and we both remain in good health we can manage this place. Putting on new windows which do not require external maintenance has been a really forward step eliminating the necessity of having to work on a ladder at the second storey level. We need to do our living room floor with hardwood and then all the floors have been redone in the house. I occupy part of the living/dining room area with my computer and genealogy material and that works very well. I am hoping by being so visible to keep down the paperwork and my idea was to mostly have everything online in my Legacy file and so far that has worked very well. I do maintain skeleton trees on Ancestry and Find My Past but my principal trees are on my own computer in Legacy. The trees on the paid subscription services simply give me the ability to search on these main lines readily using the power of the searching tools on these subscription services.

The lecture yesterday was interesting as it was principally directed at people with older parents in need of Long Term Care rather than at newly retirees which we are more or less with my husband retired late 2004 and I retired January 2007. We are both over 65 now which makes us officially seniors and I have my "old" card as does he. It is an interesting concept to have a card that says that you are over 65 since you are collecting the Old Age Pension.

I did decide to take on Regional Representative for the Guild of One Name Studies Eastern Region of Canada. I am trying to step down from the Hampshire Genuki webpages and that is in a sort of process. I asked the person who took over the Church database to consider the possibility. Since the pages are generated there isn't much to do. I am finding that this new generation of web pagery is more than I want to take on (i.e. my mind doesn't seem to get around it :) ).

Continuing with the Andover Parish Registers I am now into the Marriage portion of this 3rd Register and it includes Banns. The various Justice of the Peace who are marrying are also recording the parish of the bride or groom if different from Andover St Marys Parish which is an excellent addition. There are many many banns for this parish probably as much as twice the number of marriages. I expect this will be a good file online eventually.

I am now up to 5867 baptisms (end of 1684 so just five years shy of 100 years of baptisms at Andover), 854 marriages and that is up to November 1656, 76 Banns and this is now a new section and 2606 burials to the end of the 2nd register. The burials are still to do in this register and will follow the marriages and banns. I am now on the fourth row of the second fiche (image 4). There remains 20 images on this fiche and then about 50 images on the third fiche for Parish Register 3. Perhaps I will finish the 3rd Register in November. I then have some work to do on other material (extraction of the Bishops Nympton information into an excel file for one) plus I want to do some French Canadian Research that I have been thinking about. I should start the 4th Parish Register for Andover in the New Year and it has special interest for me all the way up to 1730 when Joseph Blake is born/baptized at Andover. I want to see if he is the only possible Joseph Blake at Andover in this time period as doing the French Canadian Research has honed my skills even more so and I need even more proof now for each step of the way.

Andover is a growth area with baptisms always exceeding burials. Eventually I will chart these parishes year by year in excel to show baptisms, marriages and burials year by year.

Whilst working through this batch I discovered that the marriages from 1659 to 1673 are not in chronological order within the fiche. Hopefully they will appear later although they are not indexed on the IGI so possibly they are missing. I shall watch for them. This is not a bad period for me to be missing marriages as Thomas married to Mary Spring would likely have only been born between 1655 and 1690. He would not likely have married by 1673. Unfortunately the marriage entry for Thomas and Mary is a one liner with no details other than that the priest recorded the parish of residence if it wasn't Andover and did mention if one of the parties was a widow or widower. Such methodical entering can be most helpful plus he has immaculate writing and I can hardly wait to reach the next Register! The last page of fiche 2 is particularly difficult however there are only 50 images to go after this one (the third fiche) so not too bad. The second one has gone amazingly fast. The details recorded for the banns and the marriages will be most helpful to someone I am sure.

Guild of One Name Studies and Transcription of Parish Registers

My time now seems to be fairly consistently involved with my Guild of one Name Studies membership and my transcription of Parish Registers. I have agreed to be the Regional Representative for Eastern Canada for the Guild of One Name Studies.

My transcription of St Marys Andover Parish Registers continues and I have reached 5600 baptisms now since the beginning of the Registers in 1588. I am up to August 1682 so almost 100 years of baptisms. The Registers are becoming somewhat easier to read and they are quite exceptional in the 1700s on so I have that aspect to look forward to. I started at the beginning of the Register instead of working backwards because I was already familiar with the surnames in this area and I really wanted the 1600s of this Register to more clearly understand my Blake family there.

At 1684 I will then start to enter the marriages and then the burials for the period 1642 to 1684. This has been a very difficult set of fiche but once done will be very handy to me and likely others. However before releasing to the OPC Hampshire webpages I need to proofread the copy which will be an enormous task in itself.

Transcription continuing for Andover Parish Registers at St Marys Parish

Again I worked on my transcriptions of the Andover Parish Registers. Today thus far I have completed 5328 baptisms to date and I am up to 1 Feb 1678. This set of fiche are complete with March 1648 (end of year). The names of the people have changed somewhat. There are very few Blake entries and they represent two lines only - one coming down from Nicholas Blake who died 1547 at Old House and one from his brother Robert Blake who died in 1542 in Kings Enham. There may be older members of the Blake family there but they are not showing up at the moment because I am only doing the baptisms. The priest has now separated the baptisms from the marriages and from the burials. He has started quite early to do so in this parish as Bishops Nympton does not start to separate them out until the early 1700s. This set of fiche began in 1642 and already the three services have been separated.

Have I learned anything yet about my Blake or other families. I have found a couple of Spring baptisms that I was curious about. They were difficult to read and the two girls were twins (duly noted by the priest). The writing was very small so I missed it in my cursory look at the registers initially. It was an accidental find of an important piece of information that inspired me to begin transcriptions in the first place. I was very early to Genealogy (around 2003) when I started the Bishops Nympton registers. I completed them in 2009 and I could have by 2005 started to put them into an excel file but I decided to complete the project that way and it is quite useful to me but can not be send in to be put on my OPC Bishops Nympton site. I work away at converting it when the opportunity presents itself.

I will do the Cardinal Points for the Andover Registration District in as much as I am able and will send that in. Perhaps someone will do Andover Registration District Marriage Challenge for the Guild of One Name Studies. Although for me there isn't any benefit. Mostly I only benefit from Marriage Challenges in a couple of areas because my guild one name studies are very small and localized.

Our dishwasher broke so we are shopping around to see what is available. Ours was just a countertop model which has been interesting the last year that we have had it. It was used and the dial simply gave up. There are 45 cm portable ones that look quite interesting and would fit well into our kitchen. I do not want to give up the cupboard space to have one installed into the counter.

Marriage Challenge and Andover

A discussion on Marriage Challenges on the Discussion Forum for the Guild of One Name Studies led to an interesting discovery on my part. I could assist with a Marriage Challenge by extracting the marriages that I have at the parishes in the Andover Registration District - Andover, Abbots Ann, Upper Clatford, Goodworth Clatford, and Penton Mewsey. Not sure how many of the smaller parishes that I have marriages from 1837 to the present but will check on that. I need to set up the Cardinal Points so will work away at that and then I can set up an excel file and work away at that a bit each day.

I am now up to 5108 baptisms and just three pages left on the first fiche. There are three fiches for this time period (1642 - 1684) for the baptisms, marriages and burials. My excel file includes the fiche #, line # and image # to make finding the information again quite easy.

I had decided to resign from all of the county historical societies and other groups to which I have belonged for about five or six years and more in some cases except for the Guild of One Name Studies and I received an Exit Survey back for one of the organizations. It will be difficult to fill in because I resigned mostly because I was getting overloaded with journals and I simply couldn't read them all. Now I am in the mode of deciding which journals I found most beneficial to my work and that I consistently would read other than the Guild Journal. Leaving the Guild was too awkward which was the main reason for not retrenching completely!

I mostly blame it on being able to trace most of my lines and back quite a way. Having gotten back into the 1700s with all of them and further back for a number of them, I simply do not have enough hours in the day to do research. I need to make a decision on what I want to thoroughly research and what I will leave for someone else in the future if I am so lucky as to have someone pick all of this up :)

From what I understand though Cardinal Points are the first and last marriage in a quarter for each contributing institution (churches, court houses perhaps and licensed agencies). I do not know how marriages work in England outside of Churches. I am also noticing that each institution has a page of their own in the county registry office - for instance St Mary Abbotts Ann was page 37 and St Marys Andover was page 39 and all marriages are recorded on these pages in date order - all four marriages for Andover 3rd quarter 1837 were listed for page 39 in Free BMD. The single marriage for Abbotts Ann was listed. There were five other numbers 41, 43, 45, 47 and 49. Since Ludgershall would probably have at least as many marriages as Andover they are probably the second large one. Interestingly this Registration District crosses into Wiltshire. Since these numbers appear fixed it should be possible to determine which pages belong to which parishes and I shall see if I can figure that out as I have a number of Parishes that are in Andover RD.

Andover RD

Abbotts Ann St Mary
Amport St Mary
Andover St Mary
Appleshaw St Peter
Barton Stacey All Saints
Bullington St Michael
Chilbolton St Mary
Chute
Chute Forest
Faccombe St Barnabas
Foxcott
Fyfield St Nicholas
Goodworth Clatford St Peter
Grateley St Leonard
Hurstbourne Tarrant St Peter
Kimpton St Peter and St Paul
Knights Enham St Michael the Archangel
Linkenholt St Peter
Longparish St Nicholas
Ludgershall
Monxton St Mary
North Tidworth
Penton Grafton
Penton Mewsey Holy Trinity
Quarley St Michael
Shipton Bellinger St Peter
Smannell
South Tedworth Old St Mary
Tangley St Thomas
Thruxton St Peter
Upper Clatford All Saints
Vernhams Dean St Mary
Wherwell St Peter

I have the fiche for: Abbotts Ann, Andover, Goodworth Clatford, Kimpton, Knights Enham, Penton Mewsey and Upper Clatford. However, I do not always have the marriages from 1837 to 1912 for all of these parishes. I purchased them to look at the Blake families there and I wasn't interested past 1812 in most cases and not after 1750 for many of them although I did buy them into the 1800s.

I can trace my Blake line clearly back to the 1600s so did not have a strong need for the parish records into the 1800s.

Andover Parish Records Transcription

Back to Andover Parish Records Transcription beginning yesterday and continuing today. I am now up to 1671 with 4731 baptisms. The priest is now separating the baptisms from the marriages and also the burials. This is one of the hardest and most difficult sections of the Registers. The time period covers the latter part of the reign of King Charles I, the Commonwealth and now I am in the restoration period when Charles II came to the throne. The records are gradually improving and becoming more legible. However, that means that the marriages and the burials will also be difficult and they are still to come!

I am on the fifth row of the first of the three fiche for the time period 1642 to 1684. This is also the period when I am trying to link back to the earlier Blake family at Andover which family lore tells me is my line. This line doesn't trace back to royalty or dukes/lords not even knights. The father of Nicholas Blake is unknown although his parents were married as his mother left a will mentioning her husband but not by name unfortunately. It is interesting that Somersby fabricated a story about this family. I suppose he did it to make the Blake family in the US appear to be very connected to what appeared to be a famous family. Certainly Admiral Robert Blake was an interesting Blake to link to but that was easily done since the Blake family of the Carolinas is definitely related to him but perhaps it was the Blake family in Boston that was the reason for his fabrication. He needed to link that family to the Somerset Blake family and instead of clearly checking the records and discovering that William the emigrant had come from OverStory he fabricated this enormous myth about the Blake families of Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset being related. Paul Reed does an opposite turnabout and completely separate the Andover Blake family from any other without really investigating who this family may have been related to so missed the marriage of William Blake and Avice Ripley who are purported to be from Andover.

The Wiltshire chart implies that the Blake family at Andover descends from the Blake family at Calne, Wiltshire. However, the William on the chart stated as dying in 1582 at Eastontowne was not married to Avice Ripley. I suspect that this couple are the parents in law of one of William Blake, the linendraper, son John who married a Margaret Blake also listed on the chart. The Chart is important to establish the Blake line(s) of Diana, Princess of Wales but this William is named as a son of Roger Blake. The Visitation for Roger Blake does not list a son William. Very perplexing as my earlier blog states. I continue to draw out the relevant information.

The article by Paul Reed although interesting has failed to note the Tax records available in the 1500s listing three William Blakes in the Andover area and the Pedigree chart which was prepared in the latter part of the 1600s and added to in the 1700s by the College of Arms. These two serious omissions on his part limit his article to a certain extent. He is right about Somersby work on the Blake family though so that is a pity really. When you write an article and overlook some material your article is the one that becomes suspect unfortunately even though what you had to say about the earlier research is absolutely valid and right on.

Before I transcribe the wills I acquired for the Blake family I need to at least reach 1730 in my transcriptions and so I have returned to working on that for a while.

Beard family

I received an email from one of my Beard cousins in England yesterday sending me information on the Hemsley family there. Henry Beard married Elizabeth Hemsley 31 Mar 1766. Initially this marriage was missing from the London records when Ancestry published them on their website. I wrote to them and mentioned the missing two pages and a few months later they appeared although attached to 1776 marriage pages (at the beginning). Henry Beard is transcribed as Henry Picard and I have sent in a correction which is published on the transcription page.

This is the same cousin that mentioned that Henry Beard's will was available at "Documents on Line" a section of the National Archives webpage. I immediately downloaded it along with the will of his second wife Jane Beard and a will of a Richard Beard probated in 1823 also at St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey. He was finding the transcription of these wills difficult and so I sent him off my transcriptions. I rather enjoy transcribing wills and my ability to do so is steadily improving.

He is working his way back to Edward Beard bc 1764 and he lives on Grange Road as did my Beard family. I suspect he is a younger brother of Henry Beard along with Richard Beard. I am still hunting out the parents of Henry Beard. From his death age on the burial page he would appear to have been born in 1741. There is a marriage of a Robert Beard and Ann Ament in 1737 at St Mary Magdalen. Robert is a widower and Ann a spinster so would have likely been young enough to have a son as late as 1764. I am going to try to learn more about this couple through Ancestry.

However, I digress. Robin wrote to me about the Hemsley family. I had found the baptism of Elizabeth Hemsley at St Mary Magdalen but the year for this Elizabeth was 1744 and the burial register for Elizabeth Beard said she was 38. I felt that the priest would likely have been closer to her actual age if she had been baptized there. The 1744 birth/baptism would have made her only 37. Not a big difference but I hadn't pursued the Thomas/Elizabeth Hemsley parents of this child. He had found at St Mary, Newington (about 1 mile distance from St Mary Magdalen) there was a baptism for Elizabeth Hemsley Nov 1742 (birth 16 Oct 1742) and with a burial date of 22 Jul 1781 these dates better fit into a 38 year old at death. Parents of this Elizabeth were Matthew Hemsley and Mary Coal and they had been married 14 Dec 1740 at St Mary Newington, Southwark. They had two other living children (Mary b1741:d young), George b 1744 and Mary b 1750) all baptized at St Mary Newington. He hadn't been able to find a baptism for Matthew Hemsley although had spotted a Hemsley/Roland couple baptizing children at St Saviour Southwark in the right time frame. That will wait for a further look at the St Saviour records. John Hemsley married Mary Roland at St Mary Le Bow London. This parish is not all that far from Southwark being just the other side of the Tower Bridge towards the northwest. The occupation of this John was Cheesemonger and that of Matthew Hemsley was tanner which would fit in very well with Henry Beard who started his career as a Fellmonger and then moved on to Tanner.

Perhaps the Beard wills that I downloaded at Kew will be handy for this family and I may devote some time this week to looking at them with this new information on the Hemsley family. The Beard family is definitely brickwalled with Henry born/baptized in 1741 and parents unknown at the moment.

That took up most of yesterday which I had planned to use to work on the Andover Parish Registers. I want to get back to putting in a couple of hours a day on them.