Using all the Documents

I have recently been looking at information about a property that my ancestors owned in Cornwood parish, Devon, England. My curiosity was heightened when a friend introduced me to new owners who have spent a few years now in renovating and updating the house.

The property was called Notts, later renamed as Woodburn. Tracing its acquisition and use has become an obsession as it may impact greatly on our family’s history in the region, at least on assumptions I have made. (Genealogists should never make assumptions because they can delay or sideline needed research into family history.)

How do I know this property was so important to my family history and when did it come into the family in the first place? The answers, at least as near as I can determine, start to appear after a review of many different types of documents.

Things started to come together when I assembled a spreadsheet listing the documents I have found on indexes or obtained concerning the lands. (I do not know why I did not do this before as I use spreadsheets for everything!) The summary was organized by date. That allowed me to see what individuals were involved in the ownership and the timing of when my ancestors arrived on the scene.

The information that I have learned about the property, briefly summarized here, will be part of an article I am writing about Master Craftsmanship, which will detail the history of the original construction, modifications and renovations of the home over the centuries and the possible roles my ancestors played.

Wills

The oldest reference I have for Notts is a transcription of an abstract of an Inquisition Post Mortem (IPM), dated 25 September 1629 for William Shepheard, who I believe was my 9^th great-grandfather. In addition to recording that he lived in Plympton St. Mary parish, is information that leases for Notts and another property in Yealmpton parish, were passed down to Nicholas Shepheard, his “son & heir, then aged 26.” Thi is the only document that indicates Nicholas, my 8^th great-grandfather, was likely born in 1601. The IPM refers to Notts as having been “held of Ellis Hele, esq. of his manor of Fardell.”

The IPM affirms that the property was in possession of a family member by 28 January 1628 the date the document states William died. (That date may be wrong by a few days. According to the Plympton St. Mary church register, he was buried there on 27 January 1628.)

Nicholas’s will, proved in 1657, recorded that he gave all his land to his eldest son, John Shepheard (1633-bef 1685), my 7^th great-grandfather, but does not name the properties. I had assumed they included a property name Rooke in Cornwood parish, but other documents I found demonstrate the lands were not acquired until probably the late 1750s. Following Nicholas’s death, his wife, Margerit (Lee) Shepheard (c1603-1685) was to share possession of the lands until her death. 

Land-related Documents

These types of contracts record ownership and tenant relationships, along with any information regarding financing and security. They name the parties involved at the time they were executed along with, in many cases, others who predated them as owners and are thus ripe sources for family history reconstruction.

A very important lease document dated 5 July 1759 recited all those in possesion of rights to Notts from Margerit Shepheard and her son, John Shepheard, down two more generations, through Nicholas Shepheard (1675-1756), my 6^th great-grandfather, to Nicholas Shepheard (1716-1786), my 5^th great-grandfather, and to his wife, Mary (Barrett) Shepheard (1736-1803).

Past that date, other lease and sale documents show the property was eventually in possession of William’s 3^rd great-grandson, and Mary’s son, Nicholas Shepheard (1761-1820), my 4^th great-granduncle, who sold it in 1806.

Tax Lists

I was aware from land tax lists that Notts (aka Knotts) was owned by my 5^th great-grandfather, Nicholas Shepheard from 1781 until his death in 1786 when it went to their oldest son, my 4^th great-granduncle, Nicholas Shepheard, the last Shepheard owner.

Other lists over the years include: the 1642 Protestation Return which names Nicholas Shepheard (1601-1657); the 1674 Hearth Tax which names Margerit Shepheard (c1603-1685); and the Oath Rolls, which name Nicholas Shepheard (1675-1756). These documents do not identify the lands on which the individuals resided but do indicate they lived in Cornwood parish.

Parish Registers

We mostly follow families through baptism, marriage and burial entries in the parish registers. They are the basic references to people, at least as far back as the early 16^th century.

One major problem that exists for Cornwood parish is that all the registers and many other lists were destroyed in a fire in 1685, so we have to depend on other material to find the family members.

From all documents we can surmise that William Shepheard (c1575-1628) lived in Plympton St Mary but never, apparently, in Cornwood. I connected the baptisms of nine other children of William Shepheard in Plympton St. Mary, between 1603 and about 1620. The register only goes back to 1603 so the record of the birth of Nicholas has not been preserved.

William’s son, Nicholas Shepheard (1601-1657) married Margerit Lee (c1603-1685) on 5 April 1630 in Plympton St. Mary parish. but all their children were baptized, and presumably born in Cornwood parish, beginning with John in 1633 and ending with Orindge about 1640. The growth of the family begs the question as to whether the original Notts longhouse might have undergone expansion during this period.

This information suggests they were the first Shepheard family to come to Cornwood. In addition, the 1759 document states Margerit was “formerly in the tenure or possession” of Notts, which we might read as living and raising her family there. She was buried in Cornwood on 14 July 1685.

Subsequent generations were almost all born, married and buried in Cornwood.

Summary

No single set of documents has enough information to completely assemble my family tree and confirm inter-generational relationships. With the combined documentation, though, we can get a much better understanding of how the individuals were related and where they may have resided.

The Confusion of Similar Names

 In our family research, we have all run up against situations where we have two or more individuals with the same or similar names, born about the same time and living in the same area, any of whom could be our ancestor. Sometimes you can only guess which is the one that fits your family the best.

I was corresponding with a cousin last week about the common ancestors we have in Cornwood, Devon, England. In my years as an Online Parish Clerk, I have acquired and transcribed thousands of entries in the baptism marriage and burial registers and on the multiple census records for the area.

Anyway, we were discussing a Mary Maddock who was our common ancestral connection. In Cornwood, there were two children baptized with that name, one in 1699, to parents Robert and Sarah (James) Maddock, and the other in 1701, to parents Richard and Elizabeth (Heard) Maddock. There were a couple of others born around the same time in neighbouring areas, but we thought one from Cornwood would be a better bet since both our families had connections to that parish and the descendants of our Mary Maddock lived in that area.

One married James Collins/Collings, on 6 January 1725-26, in Plympton St. Mary parish, next door. My cousin and I both share ancestors with the Collins family. James and Mary (Maddock) Collins had three children born in Plympton St. Mary and then three more in Cornwood. One daughter, Mary Collins (1735-1797), married Richard Shepheard (1726-1803) in Cornwood in 1761. They are my 5^th great-grandparents. Another daughter, Susannah, married Stephen Sandover and they are my cousin’s 5^th great-grandparents.

The other Mary Maddock married John Edwards, also in Cornwood, on 11 May 1727. The Edwards family are ancestral to my Crispin line. Mary Crispin (1800-1884) married William Carpenter (1796-1877) in 1796. Their daughter, Mary Crispin Carpenter (1830-1890) married John Shepheard (1830-1901) and are my 2^nd great-grandparents. John was also the great-grandson of Richard and Mary (Collins) Shepheard.

Our main problem is we cannot confirm which Mary Maddock married James Collins and which married John Edwards. The baptism, burial and marriage registers have no details that would indicate who their parents were or what age they were when they married and died. But, as it turns out, both couples are my 6^th great-grandparents.

As a solution, rightly or wrongly, I decided that the oldest Mary Maddock would have married first and the younger one married later. Thus, my tree has the Mary born in 1699 as the wife of James Collins and the one born in 1701 as the wife of John Edwards.

It does not get any easier fleshing out the families. We think that both James and John were not born in Cornwood but can find no record that is a definitive match. We have only tentative burial dates for all four people but, again, cannot confirm them. And common forenames like John and James don’t give us a narrow list of possible candidates. More confusion!

One aspect in support of my decision about which Mary married which man was in looking at the names of their children. John and Mary Edwards had children named Elizabeth and Richard, which were also the parents’ names for the Mary Maddock born in 1701. That seemed to connect these families.

Given the dates we are looking at – late 17^th century – it will be difficult to trace either of the Maddock families much further back in Cornwood. All the parish registers compiled before 1685 were destroyed in a fire in the Churchwarden’s home in that year.

Sometimes you have limited data that will confirm relationships. In these cases, you have to make what may be reasoned guesses. I think I have done this for my two Mary Maddocks, based on age, marriage date and children’s names. Perhaps one day blood connections through DNA tests may help narrow down the options.

Leaving the Past to the Future 7: Preserving Memorabilia

In the first blog post about this subject, I mentioned preserving memorabilia (4 March 2024 – Organizing Your Information). I have written before about photos and photo albums (What will we do with future photos, Prized Old Photos, Digitizing Memories, My amazing picture-taking machines), home movies (Preserving Home Movies), family memorabilia (Memorabilia, Old Heirloom Watches), school records (My Mother’s Scrapbook), furniture and antiques (The Old Rocking Chair’s Got Me).

I am a collector of old family stuff: photos (of course), antiques and furniture, drawings, woodworking projects, souvenirs, brochures, bibles, area history publications, family correspondence, cards (birthday, anniversary, Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day), tape and video recordings, phonograph records, tools, farm implements, toys, musical instruments, cameras, various types of collections, artwork (both professional and pieces done by children and grandchildren) and assorted mementoes of family activities, events, workplaces and life milestones.

I still have all the report cards and many of the projects our children brought home from school. These have been digitized so their families can see them easily (and in case they get lost, damaged or thrown out).

And, as I have written about before, all the old original family documents are secured in binders or in my safe.

My family laughs at me for keeping it all but, to my mind these things represent family history. They were important to people who owned and used them.

As much as I have, I am still surprised and annoyed with myself for having given away or discarded many items.

We have given (or will give) a few things to children and grandchildren. By doing so we at least keep them in the family and imbue the recipients with some sense of their ancestral history.

Now that we are in our probable last home, I have made a point of bringing many things out of their storage boxes to display them. A lot of comments are made by preservationists about keeping material in archive-like containers to prevent their deterioration. That is a good idea for many things but putting them out on shelves or hanging them on walls so that people, especially family members, can see them is also important. Stories and memories can be easily forgotten if the tangible pieces that go with them kept are out-of-sight.

One of my projects is to photograph and document all the old stuff that is still kicking around here. That will includes making displays of small but bulky pieces is shadow boxes.

Whatever you choose to keep, make a record of what it is, where is came from, who it belonged to and what dates it was both produced and acquired. Without that information, your descendants and family will not have any knowledge of its importance or provenance.

1-Grandma Miller's irons, 2-Dad's home made chess set, 3-Dad's carving 1934 contest entry made with coping saw, 4-great-grandfather James Shepheard's pocket watch, 5-custom made stained glass window, 6-old family rocking chair, 7-Wayne's 70-year old toy cap guns, 8-Grandpa Miller's farm fork, 9-Wayne's safety matchbook collection