Royal Welch Fusiliers

My 3x great grandfather George Lywood was in the 23rd Regiment of Foot better known as the Royal Welch Fusiliers. After discovering on the census that he was a Chelsea Pensioner and on his marriage registration (26 Oct 1817 at Milston Wiltshire to Martha Peck) that he was a veteran of Waterloo, I then investigated on Find My Past to see if he had any service records and indeed he does. His statement of service record is available. He was discharged due to asthma after over 11 years of service on 26 Oct 1816. There is a description of him on the certificate and he has dark colouring including his eyes and is of short stature. He also received a bar for Martinique and a medal for Waterloo. Where these particular medals have gone I have absolutely no idea but he did have two sons and likely the descendants of one of these two families have the medals. I descend from his only daughter and his fourth child died at the age of 17 years. Whilst we were in England in 2008 and on our tour we stopped at Cardiff Castle. They have a Museum to the Royal Welch Fusiliers and I was able to see what the clasp that he received looked like which was really keen. They also had for sale a book on the Royal Welch Fusiliers by A.D.L. Carey and Stouppe McCance and illustrated by Gerald C Hudson. One of the illustrations shows the uniform of a private about 1689 and 1791. Very nice pictures to have. It is Volume 1 1689 - 1815 and printed by The Naval and Military Press Ltd. Title of the Book:

Cary, ADL and McCance, S. 2005. Regimental Records of the Royal Welch fusiliers (Late the 23rd Foot). 324 pages. Illustrations. Uckfield, East Sussex, UK: The Naval and Military Press Ltd. ISBN: 1-845742765

It can be ordered online at: www.naval-military-press.com

George Lywood was indeed the first of my ancestors (to the best of my knowledge) to come to Canada. He (according to this book and his military records) was stationed at Halifax, Annapolis 16 April 1808 having embarked for Nova Scotia from Portsmouth January 1808.

Unfortunately I acquired a migraine headache trying to do too much transcription on the burials. They are very closely compacted on the page and a bit of eye strain is needed to read them quickly whilst continuing to type! Hence today I am reading. The burials at Andover are now at 7314 as of the end of May 1719. I have found Thomas Blake's burial 29 January 1714 and the priest at this time was noting if this was an infant/child burial by giving the father's name. One could wish that a notation might have been made husband of but at least the wives did get that notation. By family lore I believe this to be my Thomas as my grandfather remembered this very old story about his ancestor living with his widowed mother at Foxcott. One day I may be able to prove that particular item but in the meantime I keep it on the back burner hauling it forward every once in a while as I acquire new data of interest.

Andover Parish Register 2 - 4

I continued working on the Andover Parish Register 2 today and completed the baptisms for this register. There are now 3028 baptisms in the excel file. There are two new Henxman entries:

Henxman Christian daughter Henxman Joseph 1637 January 18
Henxman Elizabeth daughter Henxman Joseph 1640 May 26

These are the grandchildren of my 10x great grandfather Richard Blake's sister Eleanor who married Joseph Hinxman.

I started into the marriages and there are now 663 marriages in the excel file.

This is going to be an enormous file when it is completed up to 1900 at some point in the distant future!

We went to the Re-enactment of one of the Battles of the War of 1812-1814 at Upper Canada Village today. Yesterday the events were rained out but today the battle took place. It was extremely well done and one of the units was the Royal Artillery. My great grandfather served in the Royal Artillery from 1864 to 1885 so was pleased to see the uniform. I imagine it was somewhat changed from 1812-1814 but probably not a great deal. We are toying with the idea of taking on re-enactments as members of the Royal Artillery (my husband and I). I also have one 3x great grandfather who was in the 23rd Regiment of Foot so that too would be interesting. He served in the Peninsular Wars. It is possible that I have a second 3x great grandfather who served in the Peninsular War as well. I am still trying to discover if he did.

Tomorrow I shall continue with the transcription of the Andover Parish Register 2. I think perhaps I will complete this Register and then go back to the Timberscombe and complete a number of the Bishops Transcripts pages. Then I will return to do the 3rd Parish Register which is one that I especially want to look at for Andover. It will not likely answer particular questions but having all the data will be helpful.

Timberscombe Bishops Transcripts - 3

I did go ahead with the next page of the Bishops Transcripts for Timberscombe and it was brutal! I did manage to complete it and will work on it again tomorrow. I have also decided to go back to working on the Andover Parish Records at the same time. The second Parish Register is rather difficult and working on two difficult ones will probably keep me moving along at a steady pace for both of them - the Andover being slightly better!

Looked at the Hinxman family once again and the IGI. Looking at the Tax/Subsidy Records for the 1500s there appears to be only one Hinxman line at Andover headed by William Senior. He has a son William Junior and possibly a son Joseph. There isn't anything yet to clearly show that Joseph's father was William. I know more about Joseph because his son Joseph married Eleanor Blake (sister to my Richard). The association between the Blake and Hinxman family continues through the 1600s and would appear to end in the early 1700s. At least I do not find any records linking them after this date at Foxcott where my Blake ancestors lived in the early 1700s.

I searched on FMP again today looking at the Dockland Ancestors records. Since these include the Church in Bermondsey - St Mary Magdalen - I hope to find more information on my Beard, Hemsley and Buller families there. I did find information on Edward Beard (brother to Henry my 4x great grandfather). I know that the Beard family lived on Grange Road as did John Hemsley possible father to my Elizabeth Hemsley who married Henry Beard in 1766 at Bermondsey (St Mary Magdalen). Their daughter Mary (no baptism found yet) married Christopher Buller prior to 1796 when they are mentioned in Henry Beard's will. I also had a look at the Routledge family but no records for Cumberland. I must have pulled up over 100 records today having a good look here and there.

My George Lywood was mentioned in his marriage lines as a Waterloo Pensioner but I do not find him at Waterloo - he did receive a clasp for the Peninsula Campaign as he was at Martinique. Perhaps the reference to Waterloo Pensioner was because he served in the campaign that led up to Waterloo. He was in the 23rd Regiment of Foot and I had the good luck to visit the Welsh Regimental Museum in Wales when we were on our tour. I purchased their book which gives an excellent history of the Regiment. George was my first ancestor to step foot in Canada as he was here at Halifax with the 23rd Regiment in 1807 before heading off to Martinique.

Still bothered somewhat by my shoulder so will write a little less! I will again carry on with Timberscombe and Andover Parish Registers. I need to contact one of the speakers in the Fall to go over my case histories that I will speak about for DNA. I am sure that she isn't thinking about it very much at the moment but I think it might be timely to contact her so that we could set a date to speak about the case histories sometime in late July or early August. This will be my last presentation. I find it just takes up too much time preparing for the talks and I really much prefer to do research.