Recognizing Notables in the Parish Records

I have occasionally observed the use of titles and honorifics in the registers of Cornwood parish, Devon. Invariably they were attached to notable people in the community who, for the most part, were major landowners. I use this example as it is the area of origin of my Shepheard ancestors and for which I have transcribed all of the parish baptism, marriage and burial records. I am sure that the same holds true for other parishes in Britain.

The heads of the Rogers family were consistently referred to with the titles of “Sir” and “Bart.” – for Baronet – in the Cornwood registers; for the women, “Lady” or “Dame” were used. John Rogers, the first of the line, made his fortune as a merchant and bought an estate and the lordship of the manor, called Blatchford, from John Hele, in 1690. He was created a Baronet in 1699. Eight Baronets from the Rogers family, including one who was created Baron, Lord Blachford, in 1871, are buried at Cornwood, and, as one might expect, all with their full titles recorded in the burial register.

 

1716 baptism entries for Frederick & Barbara, son & daughter of Sir J. Rogers Bart. & Mary his wife

1889 burial entry for Frederick Rogers, Lord Blachford

One term that most people are familiar with in family history records is Esquire. It originally was generally used interchangeably with “squire” although that word originated as the individual who served a knight.

Historically, in Britain, Esquire was the title used for man with a “rank next below that of Knight. Besides those Esquires who are personal attendants of Knights of Orders of Knighthood, this title is held by all attendants on the person of the Sovereign, and all persons holding the Sovereign's commission being of military rank not below Captain ; also, by general concession, by Barristers at Law, Masters of Arts, and Bachelors of Law and Physic” (Boutell, 1899). In the 1600s, Esquire was defined generally as the title for the eldest sons of knights or peers and their eldest sons in perpetuity, for those in positions created by the monarch or by virtue of their office, such as Justices of the Peace. In more modern times it may be attached to the name of any man in formal use or in the address of a letter where there is no prefixed title.

In the Cornwood parish registers only a few men were recorded with the term, Esquire, all of them members of the most affluent and influential families in the parish and owners of the major manors or estates – including the Hays, Hele, Maynard, Pode, Praed, Savery and Trefusis families. The burial register is most often the place one finds the title recorded. The title was almost expressly used for the eldest sons of the families, which was the norm in Britain.

 

1691 burial entry for Robert Savery Esquire of Slade

1692 baptism entry for Waltham Savery, son of Will. Savery Junr. Esq & Catherine his wife

Another term used for many individuals in the same families where a man was accorded the title of Esquire is Gentleman; Gentlewoman was common for the wives or daughters of these families. In the registers, the term is not used for any of those men known as Esquire, suggesting the designation was more restricted to younger siblings of those families – still “gentle” by birth but likely not in line for inheriting titles or necessarily land. Many of those recorded with the term, Gentleman, were from wealthy land-owning families but not part of the most “titled” families – knights or peers.

1685 burial entry for William Mason Gentn.

1830 baptism entry for Joshua Horton Northmore, son of Mary & Matthew Fortescue Northmore, of Hanger, Gent.

Many of those recorded in Cornwood records, with the term, Gentleman, were from wealthy land-owning families but not part of the most “titled” families – knights or peers – including the Badcock, Bunswell, Burrell, Coryton, Fortesque, Hele, Mason, Maynard, Northmore, Prideaux, Rogers, Savery, Williams and Worthington families.

More commonly, other important members of the community were identified by an honorific – Mr., Mrs. or Miss. Again, none of the individuals who were shown as Esquire or Gentleman (Gentlewoman) were referred to in this manner in the registers although the widows of some gentlemen or esquires might also be shown as Mrs. Most of the references are found on the burial register. The land tax lists also have numerous individuals shown as Mr. or Mrs. In all cases, these were individuals who also owned land in the parish.

My 5^th and 6^th great-grandfathers were referred to in most register entries as Mr. Both were land-owners and active in the community.

Nicholas Shepheard (ca 1675-1756) – 6^th great-grandfather – was listed in the Devon Freeholders lists as “yeoman”, “gentleman” and “freeholder” between 1711 and 1733. He was an original Feoffee and Trustee for Wakeham's Rooke Charity set up in 1700 and continued to administer the fund until his death in 1756. On the baptism entries of seven of his nine children, Nicholas was shown as Mr. His burial was recorded as Mr. Nicholas Shepard and his wife’s as Mrs. Amy Shepard. The spelling of their names in the registers was done at the discretion of the Vicar but not in keeping with other documents Nicholas has signed as Shepheard.

 

1718 baptism entry of John Shepherd, son of Mr. Nicholas & Amy Shepherd

1723 burial entries for Ann and Amy Shepherd, daughters of Mr. Nicho. Shepherd

1751 burial entry for Mrs. Amy Shepard

1756 burial entry for Mr. Nicholas Shepard

Nicholas Shepheard (1716-1786) – 5^th great-grandfather – was listed in the Devon Freeholder’s lists as “gentleman” and “freeholder” from 1762 to 1783. The designation indicates he had a fairly high position in the parish. He was shown as a co-Assessor & Collector on the Land Tax Assessment roles as well as a land owner of two major properties in the parish. He also served as the Churchwarden for St. Michael & All Angels Church in Cornwood. In that position he was primarily responsible for having the bells manufactured and installed in the church belfry in 1770. His name is cast into five of the bells (see my post of July 1, 2014). Nicholas was a Trustee of the Wakeham's Rooke Charity with brother, Richard, succeeding their father, Nicholas, in the position.

Recording the status of individuals by way of title is very much an old practice. In Cornwood parish the last time the term Esquire was used was in 1898 in the baptism register when Phyllis Cordelia Pode, daughter of Cyril Augustus & Constance Pode, of Slade manor, was baptized. In the burial register, it was for George Crawley, Esquire, a Captain in the Royal Navy, who was buried in 1810.

The last use of Gentleman was in 1896 in the baptism register when Gerard Parker, son of Mackworth Parker, of Moor Cross, was baptized. In the burial register, it was for Henry Rogers who died in 1716.

An honorific was last used in the baptism register in 1808 when Anne Roberts was baptized, her father being a servant to Mr. Pode. The last reference in the burial register was for Mrs. Anne Hayes in 1803.

Knowing the people within a parish or region and observing the titles or honorifics with which they are recorded allows one to get a sense of the hierarchy in the community at the time. Obviously, titles conferred by the Crown are at the highest level – knights, baronets, barons. Those known as Esquire appear to occupy a second level. And Gentlemen/Gentlewomen are the third. Both of these we might refer to as “gentry” or “landed aristocracy”. In past centuries, those called Mr. or Mrs., especially on official documents, were important people in the community and very likely all land-owners. In Cornwood parish we can certainly make the above connections to social position and influence.

All baptism and burial images reproduced here are used with the kind permission of the rights holder, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office. Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

References:

Boutell, Charles. (1867). English Heraldry. London & New York: Cassell, Petter. and Galpin.

The Readmission into the Church of England by Apostates in 17th Century England

I have written before about finding notes in old BMD parish registers that referenced activities in the parish as wells as various historical events.

I found the following note, apparently glued into the pages of the burial register for Plympton St. Mary parish in Devon, England. It was at the end of a section that listed burials in 1683. On the preceding page were some other parish notes dated 1632 and 1662. On the following page, which is the last page of the register book, were some notes dated 1680 and 1681.

At the bottom of the insert is a reference to the information having been copied by E. G. Hunt on what looks like July 5^th, 1869. Edward George Hunt was the Vicar of Plympton St. Mary from 1865 to 1872 so the 1869 date makes sense. Why he did so then and in that register book, we may never know. One may surmise he was studying one of the most accomplished leaders of the Church of England and thought that particular register book which spanned the years 1603 to 1683 was the most appropriate place to include it.

A transcription of the insert is as follows:

In A.D. 1637 Arch. Bp. Land, in presenting to the King

the annual returns from the Bps. of his Province, reports

under “Exeter”. “This year, by reason of the return of divers

that were captured in Marocco, and having been in-

habitants of those western parts, there arise in my Lord

the bishop a doubt, how they, having renounced their

Saviour, and become Turks, might be readmitted

into the Church of Christ, and under what penitential

form. His Lordship at his last being in London spoke

with me about it, and we agreed on a form which

was afterward drawn up, and approved by the right

reverend father in God my Lord the bishops of London,

Elg. And Norwich, and is now settled by your Majesty’s

appointment; and I shall take care to see it regis-

tered here, and have given charge to my Lord of Exon

to see it registered below, to remain as a precedent

for future times, if there should be any more and

examples of apostasy from the faith.”

Laud’s Works. V. 352

The Bp. Of Exeter at this time was the famous

Dr. Joseph Hall.

Copied July 5^th 1869

by E. G. Hunt

It is a curious entry and I wondered what it all meant. I knew that, between the 16^th and 19^th centuries, a white slave market had flourished with tens of thousands of men, women and children taken in raids along the European coast from Spain to England – from villages and ships at sea. While captive many people converted to the Muslim religion – or “Turk” as it was called – probably to save their lives.

Thousands died in captivity as a result of overwork, malnutrition, disease or murder. Over the decades, though, many were able to escape or were ransomed, and returned to their home countries. Among many references about the subject is a good summary on the History webpages, called British Slaves on the Barbary Coast.

The return of the former captives posed a problem for the Established Church. The ones who had converted to Muslim were considered apostates and could no longer attend services or receive help from their local parishes.

One man who recognized the situation and who also realized that the majority of former slaves had been forced to convert was Joseph Hall (1574-1656), who served as the Bishop of Exeter between 1627 and 1641. Hall was an outspoken theologian, often controversial, and a prodigious writer. Much of his writing was compiled later and published, in twelve volumes, as The Works of Joseph Hall, D. D. All of the volumes, along with many more books and essays by him can be read online. He had many run-ins with authorities but also had many accomplishments within the Church of England.

Dr. Hall had been troubled by former slaves who returned home as apostates and undertook to find ways to reunite them with their former church and congregation and to become, once more, productive members of their communities.

The note found in the parish register references a form which was drawn by Dr. Hall, under the authority of Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645). The finished document, published in 1635, can be found in Volume XII of The Works of Joseph Hall, D. D. (pages 346-350) and is titled, A Form of Penance and Reconcilitation of a Renegado, or Apostate from the Christian Church to Turcism.

 

First part of 1635 Church of England form dealing with the Penance and Reconciliation of an Apostate

The rules for readmission into the Church were laid out in detail in this form. The penitent was required to meet with clergy in his area for a number counselling sessions. If his situation warranted, he would be allowed to offer penance over several weeks, described firstly as:

The next Sunday following, let the offender be appointed to stand all the time of divine service and sermon in the forenoon, in the porch of the Church, if it have any; if none, yet without the Church door, if extremity of weather hinder not; in a penitent fashion, in a white sheet, and with a white wand in his hand, his head uncovered, his countenance dejected, not taking particular notice of any one person that passeth by him; and when the people come in and go out of
the Church, let him upon his knees humbly crave their prayers, and acknowledge his offence in this form; “ Good Christians, remember in your prayers a poor wretched Apostate, or Renegado.

After numerous occasions of standing in penance, he would be questioned again if he had “. . . found a true and earnest remorse in his soul for his sin. . .” and, following substantial prayers and public entreaties, a Minister would finally take away his white sheet and absolve the individual by saying,

Dear Brother, (for so we all now acknowledge you to be,) let me here advise you, with what care and diligence, every day of your life, you ought to consider how much you are bound to the infinite goodness of God, who bath called you out of that woeful condition, whereunto you had cast yourself; and how much it concerneth you ever hereafter to walk worthy of so great a mercy; being so much yourself in all holy obedience to God, by how much you have more dishonoured and provoked him by this your shameful revolt from him: which the same God, the Father of mercies, vouchsafe to enable you unto, for the sake of the dear Son of his love, Jesus Christ the righteous. Amen.

And I learned all this after finding a strange note pasted into a parish register by the local vicar in 1869. These kinds of notes will rarely be digitized and almost never found in an online database of births, marriages and deaths. One has to troll the pages themselves. In doing so, it might be possible to find all manner of references to the history of the times.

The image reproduced here is used with the kind permission of the rightsholder, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.

Common Ancestors and Relationships to Nobility

I was thinking of taking a genealogy course that was oriented to Medieval studies and wondering if it would be of value to my own family research. I have trouble right now getting further back than the early 1600s, mostly because parish records where my Shepheard ancestors lived were destroyed in a fire at the churchwarden’s house in 1685. I am pretty sure that there were families I am related to that predated the earliest date of 1610 that I found in a will.

With regard to whether it would be useful for me to take the course, a friend commented to me: “[I]t depends.” The course I was looking to take deals with many different information sources from around the 1400s to 1600s. That time period is not really Medieval which is generally recognized as beginning around the 5^th century and lasting until the 15^th century. In fairness, the course is really an introduction to Medieval genealogy; that is, what you may learn will help you with finding and researching Medieval records.

But I digress. . .

My friend, who knows a lot about genealogy (she teaches it), and this course in particular, then went on to say that, “Almost all of us are descended from nobility at some point (math modelling tells us this must be true). There are virtually no documents for the time prior to 1066, unless you are of course a member of the Anglo Saxon royal circle . . . because historians have so little to go on. Some people claim to have discovered their ordinary families in sources such as manorial records and other sources used prior to 1600 or so, however even those sources tend to peter out the further back you go. To get back beyond 1370 would be very difficult.” So the course might be of value.

I got to wondering again, “So how is it that so many people can claim they are related to famous individuals such as Charlemagne?” I did a quick search on Ancestry for the man, born in AD 747 and died in 814 (exact dates used in the search) and found there are 126,224 Family Trees with him listed! I guess I should not have been surprised inasmuch as so many family historians of European heritage have been told they must be related to him so they all copy information from each other to show it.

 

Charlemagne (AD 747-814)

People have done some math on ancestral lines and deduced that, when we calculate the numbers of our direct ancestors they double with each generation, to the point that, after a few iterations, the total almost reaches what would have been the entire population of Europe at one point (Chang, 1999, Recent Common Ancestors of all Present-day Individuals). Obviously that is unlikely so we must consider the numerous times cousins married cousins and that there was a web of relationships, not a straight line. Many models suggest the number of people in all of our lines is much smaller and that we must all be related to just a few people from that time period and, ergo, to each other.

Maybe if you go back to the origin of our species in Africa that might be technically true. But in the context of family history studies, it is virtually impossible to say that we, or at least so many of “we” descend from one man or one woman or the same man or woman. And, if we did, why would it be this particular man – Charlemagne? And not, say, someone like Imhotep, “vizier, sage, architect, astrologer and chief minister” to the Pharoah during the 27^th century BC (according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica). He must have had a lot of children, too, who spread out across the world having families of their own.

We accept that humankind grew from just a few individuals hundreds of thousand or years ago – from “Eve” if you will (Who was “Adam”?) – over two million generations. Population grew to millions over the millennia. But then the models purport to show that a significant portion of the present-day population came down from some limited group about 20 generations ago. It’s curious how that is supposed to work.

There is no doubt that past royal families had many children of whom only a few could inherit titles and lands. The rest ended up marrying into the lower classes (Who else could they marry?) and producing other large families. We can thus all claim some connection to Charlemagne through these many lines. Or can we?

Many historians use these kinds of connections to show their relationship to Charlemagne. But are there records to prove those connections. I suspect, in almost all cases, there are not. Most of us have already found that people often lied when giving information about themselves. Prior to births, marriages and deaths becoming recorded on civil records in England, after 1837, many family relationships we find are very tenuous, especially if the people moved around. Just think what it might have been like 1400 years earlier when no records were kept. The time of Charlemagne was also before surnames were used complicating the identification of any individual or family.

In every civilization and society, since there have been civilizations and societies, there has always been one small group of people who took charge. In ancient Mesopotamia, they were predominantly religious leaders, held in high esteem when times were good, because they could apparently control the bountiful crops produced – with the help of a deity or two, of course. But when times turned tough, many of them were turfed out by angry, disenchanted citizens and new groups took power.

Charlemagne was one of these. He assumed the mantle of leadership during a failing Roman Empire. Through conquest he assimilated widespread regions, eventually taking over the Roman Catholic Church as well, the real source of power and control. His timing was fortuitous, arriving on the scene just as the world was coming out of the Dark Ages (a climatic cold period that had lasted hundreds of year and was characterized by persistent cold, frequent storms, major floods, epidemics affecting both humans and animals and harvest failures). Through force-of-arms and negotiation he was able to unite the many tribes who had spread across Europe seeking new and better living conditions.

Even in Charlemagne’s time the ruling class (mainly he and his family) were only a small percentage of the total population. And while many of his progeny may have expanded and married into the “common folk”, there were lots of other families of lesser importance who continued to have their own children and to spread into other areas.

I have devised a little diagram that tries to show what proportions of any population might be from a royal family or ruling class.

1.      We take some point in time – perhaps when we cease to find records that will demonstrate relationships. It doesn’t really matter when except it should be after societies were established. Some small portion of the populace would become the ruling class, or nobility as it later would be called. The greater proportion of the people would be “common-folk”, from higher-ranking professional types down through tradesmen to labourers or peasants.

2.      We can assume that each group expands at the same rate over time, notwithstanding plagues, famines, disease, etc. That may not be quite accurate as I believe many studies right up to present day indicate that the poorer classes generally had more children and might be expected to grow at a higher rate.

3.      We can agree that many of the progeny of the “nobility” will not inherit in the same manner, if at all, and will gradually move down the social ladder and mix with the commoners. Over time they may expand, joining with other families so their descendants will increase in number, if not in influence.

4.      There would be a gradual increase in the number and proportion of the overall population that would have members descended from the nobility – the Mixed Class. But there is no reason to assume that the commoners would die out any quicker than other groups or that the mixed group would become the largest segment of the non-nobility portion of the population.

5.      No matter where we start, there will always be a large segment of the population that will have no relationship to the nobility of a previous time period no matter what the mathematical models might suggest.

Another complexity is that, in the Western World, even just restricted to Europe, there were several populations in several regions (with very different genetic origins) that ultimately mixed through colonization, conquest or migration. These movements could change the proportions of noble versus common classes or even who was part of the nobility. As well, people moved up the ladder as well as down, with some members of the working class becoming land-owners or business magnates and eventually moving into the ruling classes through marriage or assumption of power.

In any society in which there was a ruling class (i.e. nobility) there must have been a “ruled” class (i.e. not nobility). We can more easily trace the descendants of that ruling class, because they could read and write (or employed someone who could) and kept records to demonstrate where they came from. Their families may even go back to biblical times. We cannot trace those families who toiled in the fields of the feudal lords other than through church records, if we are lucky, and those records only go back so far. And it is doubtful any of those peasants would have had estates or written wills. But they did certainly have children who went on to have children, and so on, and so on, and so on!

So – can some of us be descendants of royalty, or historical figures such as Charlemagne. Of course. Can most of us? I doubt it!

But then maybe I’m just ticked off because I haven’t found any connection to royalty yet.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.