Some Unusual Endings

Family historians may find instances where the deaths of ancestors cannot be found anywhere. In some cases it might be because they died and were buried far from home, completely unknown to those who found them, such as in the following examples.

1613 May 20 – Plympton St. Mary burial – “a walking woman wch dyed in a feeld between Plimpton Morice and Cornewood”

1795 March 14 – Plympton St. Mary burial – “man floted in the tide name unknown”

1883 April 10 – Plympton St. Mary burial – “Woman Unknown Found drowned in the Laira river”

Occasionally deaths and burials will be annotated with a cause of death or unusual circumstance which might lead one to look for information in other types of records.

 

1681 August 31 – Plympton St. Mary burial – “was buried John Latchwell who was drownd in the quarry at Smithalee”

 

1835 May 6 – Plympton St. Mary burial – Stephen Hoskin, “killed by a fall from his horse”

Perhaps a newspaper might have reports about these accidents.

Richard Smith fell out of a window. In this case, there apparently was a Coroner’s Inquest for him so that may provide another source of information.

1843 May 14 – Plympton St. Mary burial – Richard Henry Smith, “killed by falling out of a Window, Cornoner’s Inquest.”

 

Richard was only 17 months old. How often have you heard that kind of story?

In the case of the 1826 death of Samuel Tall, information that an inquest was held was also noted in the burial register.

 

1826 February 13 – Plympton St. Mary burial – Samuel Tall, “Accidentally killed by a Stone falling on him in Cartsford Quarry, Inquest”

A search of local newspaper archives revealed a report (in this case, in Trewman's Flying Post, dated Tuesday, February 23, 1826) that said, "On Monday se'n night at Plympton St Mary, Samuel Tall was accidentally killed while at work at Cartsford Quarry, by a large mass of stone falling on him. He was at the time in the act of holding out his hand to receive his wages, when the stone fell upon him and caused his death, without in the least injuring the person standing close to him. Verdict – Accidental Death." Other records tell us Samuel left a wife, Jane, and three small children.

If you lost an ancestor somewhere in southwest Devon in 1745, this might be your man. The location indicate of his death might, of course, have been a shack somewhere out in a field or exactly the kind of place you are thinking right now. . .

1745 November 16 – Ermington burial – “A man unknown found dead in an out house at Beach . . .”

All images reproduced here were downloaded from FindMyPast and are used with the kind permission of the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, the copyright-holder.

Inauspicious Beginnings and Untimely Endings

Occasionally Vicars made notations in the parish registers that give us a glimpse into the lives of individuals in the community. These comments rarely make it into published indexes so those lists will usually only show names and dates.

Some children did not have a very auspicious start. The parents of all of the children shown on the following entries are unknown. There is no explanation with respect to the surname given to them.

1617 March 21 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “Thomas the father & mother unknown.”

 

No surname is shown so it is impossible to say whether the child died or continue to live and prosper in the parish.

1738 November 7 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “A child Baptized by the name of Elizabeth, Parents Unknown.”

 

The entry appears to go on to say that “the Rector said it w^d. be called November.” No individual of that name has been found in any other record in the area, however.

1788 November 28 – Cornwood baptism – “Elizabeth daughter of Persons Unknown a nurse child with William & Mary Vivian.”

 

It is not known whether she was adopted by the Vivians and given their name. The couple did have one other child, John, born in 1789.

1789 May 17 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “William Blight – Base Born Parents Unknown”

One might assume Blight was the individual’s surname and that he was also a child or infant, however no such information is present in the entry. A William Blight was buried in Plympton St. Mary parish the following year. Perhaps it was this poor little one and he never really had a chance.

An infant, found abandoned, was taken in by some kind souls in the spring of 1800 and baptized with the name of the town, Mary Plympton. She died only a few months later and was buried with no one ever knowing her family circumstances.

1800 August 31 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “Mary Plympton – Tis child was found on the 24^th June last in the High Road, deserted & forsaken by its parents”

1801 February 22 – Plympton St. Mary burial – “Mary Plympton the Child that was found in the Road 24 June 1800”

This child, too, did not fare well – another child abandoned by its parents. He died in the poorhouse at the age of two.

1887 November 28 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “Claud Mills, An infant found near Marsh Mills Parent Unknown.”

 

1889 June 13 – Plympton St. Mary burial – Claud Mills, Union Workhouse, 2 years.

A child may have begun its life with no parents but have been fortunate because of the charity of someone in the community. The Vicar did not know where this little girl came from but she became part of a new family. Her birth was officially registered as Roberts. The family disappeared from Plympton St. Mary parish shortly after her birth so I do not know what eventually became of her.

1875 January 21 – Plympton St. Mary baptism – “Emily Millicent – Parents Unknown, Adopted by Alfred George & Emily Mary Crewill Roberts”

Many other examples of children with no parents are present in parish registers. When tracing back ancestors to any one of these individuals, researchers will come up against brick walls, probably never to be broken down.

Images reproduced here were downloaded from FindMyPast or copied from my microfiche and are used with the kind permission of the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, the copyright-holder.

Thanks to the Volunteers

As I indicated in an earlier posting, with the help of many volunteers, we have been able to transcribe thousands of pages of parish registers and other documents for my four parishes in Devon to date. And work is still ongoing!

Volunteers are, of course, the lifeblood of genealogy. While commercial firms have been of great benefit in being able to find indexes and images of old records, much of what we all use is a result of thousands of volunteers each spending countless hours poring over and transcribing old documents.

I want to acknowledge here all the individuals who have assisted me: Alick, Bob, Brian, Bronwyn, Catherine, Chris, Cindy, Ellie, Gina, Joan, John, Laura, Linda, Noreen, Pamela, Sue and Vivian. I haven’t used their last names here for privacy reasons but they will recognize themselves if or when they find my blog.

As I also said before, I like to get my data in an organized form for easy reference. I have spreadsheets containing the names and dates of all individuals who were baptized, married and buried in my parishes, from the early 1600s to present day. I can sort these lists and come up with summaries of entire families over several generations.

Just for the Shepheard family in Cornwood parish, there were 124 baptism entries (see table below), 47 marriage entries and 90 burial entries in the parish registers between 1685 and 1995 That is not an overly large number compared to some other families but it represents 40 individual families related to me and spans 8 generations.

Our surname has been recorded with several different spellings but, by combining the data from the BMD registers, censuses, tax lists and other documents, I can show that, in that parish at least, they were almost all related. One unrelated Shepheard family did move into the parish in the late 1800s and an occasional person with a similar name appeared to get baptized, married or buried there, but these can all be easily differentiated from my ancestors in the lists. I can also show the history of all those other families who intermarried with the Shepheards and who are also my ancestors, as well as those who didn’t match up with a Shepheard, of course.

This is the list of Shepheard children baptized in Cornwood parish between 1685 and 1993. It contains information on the children’s and parents’ names; date of baptism, and occasionally date of birth; residence location; fathers’ occupations; and, for a few children, their illegitimate status. Readers will not be able to distinguish details but it serves as an example of what I can do with transcribed data from the parish registers. This list is sorted by (1) surname and (2) father’s forename. Each separate family is arranged together. From the list I can then match marriages, burials and censuses (after 1841) and compile a rough, initial “history” of the various families.

Having the data organized in this manner allows me to do many different analyses that help with unravelling the parish history as well as the lives of the residents. I will discuss some of these discoveries in later posts.

The point is that, segregating families over many decades would not be possible if we did not have complete lists of BMD entries from the transcription of parish registers. And we would not be anywhere near having those lists available to for our research without the help of so many people.

 

So, again, a big thank you to all those who volunteered, and continue to volunteer to help!