Newly available Worcestershire record from 1715 helps 8-great-grandpa mystery

Early November 1715 was not a great time to be getting married. The Jacobite army was in full swing in northern England and that might explain why the marriage record is missing. The parish registers for Chaddesley Corbett seem to be missing from August 1715 up until 1717.

Thomas Kidson's wife Sarah had been buried in April, having borne him several children. His next child would be Hannah Kidson baptised 1718, but there would be unique circumstances surrounding her birth. It was not simple. The picture is murky.

Thomas Kidson became a churchwarden in his home of Kinver, Staffordshire. The population may have been just a few hundred as it went from 1500 to 2000 over the nineteenth centuries. He has several hundred yards of pinfolding (nail making). Thomas's will shows some sense of importance wishing to be interred 'in a decent manner as becomes a person of my degree'. He leaves his property to the sole management of his friend John Hodges. To Mary the mother of Hannah, Richard and James Kidson 'the two beds and beding and four pair of sheets which are in the chamber I now lye', plus more including interest of money that is in Mr Fullilove's hands. Mary is also to receive the tubs and furnace belonging to his brewing business, plus pots kettles saucepans and trenchers. This suggests she ran a public house with him. I think his will was made in contemplation of death. It being July 1740 he'd be 55. There is a nice turn of phrase 'I leave to the discretion of my family now at home all the rest of my effects to be disposed of by my executor'. It starts well, but the sentence was presumably dictated by the said executor, who clearly wanted a free reign and was somewhat trusted by those present.

Thomas had older children Mary, Thomas, John Kidson and Sarah Johnson by his first marriage as a teenager to Sarah Davies.

But in November 1715, a marriage licence appears for 'Thomas Kitson widower age 30 of Kinfare Staffordshire to Jane Barford age 25 spinster of Chaddesley Corbett'. This is another rushed marriage, and it must have ended in tears as Thomas is having my ancestor Hannah barely three years later with a new partner Mary, with whom he lived but to whom he was never legally married.

So at last we have something of an explanation, that Thomas was legally married to someone else, namely Jane.

This record https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/63053/records/97528 
is found in the Worcestershire, England, Marriage Licenses, 1661-1949. 

All change at the Tavern: re-assessing tree leads to changes

For years I've wondered if you really belonged, Harriet Jones, wife of whip-thong maker Thomas Jones of Deritend, Birmingham. Your grandkids made it into my book (page 207 in fact). And your daughter Harriet Jones Hawkins was the first woman to say NO to plural marriage in a law court in the state of Utah, in 1891. She sounded like she ought to belong.

I have several DNA matches to Harriet's husband, Thomas Sunderland Hawkins, but let's remember he was the plural marrying one, so it's perhaps not surprising that half of Utah claim him as their dad. 

The problem started with Thomas Brasier baptised 1742, a customs and excise man. His entry in the IR27 death duty indexes as 'Branscer' names his wife Elizabeth and Elizabeth's own IR27 entry (1852) (turns out to be their daughter), names Joseph Newey as executor. Dr Taylor kindly sent me a copy of Elizabeth's will dated 1828, and listing five nieces, granddaughter of Thomas: Elizabeth Aston, Hannah Wood, Fanny Flavel, Harriet Newton and Eliza Newton.

These events were in and around Dudley, also Cradley Heath, Stourbridge (Old Swinford), Clent and Sedgley. It took a trip to The Hive Worcester to find Eliza's baptism in the right year as Norton, while Fanny is 1851 is recorded as Flavle and indexed as Flook. But it was Harriet that caused the pain.

For some reason I don't appear to have been very logical about my research, waiting until Nancy Brasier (another unmarried family member)'s will (1863) popped through in September 2018 before getting going in earnest. Nancy had the Druid Tavern in the town.

Also, I quickly decided Harriet Newton was born 1803 in Cradley and had married Thomas whipthong Jones in 1826. At the time I didn't have Harriet's baptism, but it did clash with aunt Elizabeth's will (1828) which declared her unmarried.

It wasn't until 2022 that Worcestershire's brilliant parish registers were uploaded to Ancestry. So today I see that Harriet was actually baptised 1809 in Oldswinford and was thus hardly likely to marry in 1826. Further that others are right that the whipthong maker's wife Harriet 'born 1803 Cradley' was baptised 1803 Deritend the son of a couple from Cradley and environs. 

And further that the marriage of Harriet (as 'Darton') in 1835 Edgbaston to Mr Ward, a japanner in the jewellery quarter looks spot on. With her first children named after sister Hannah and her husband Frederic. There is just the small issue of Harriet Newton baptised 1807 Old Swinford (daughter of Samuel) to eliminate.

I had hoped that the Estate Duty Registers for 1863 would confirm Harriet's last name: but as she got less than £20 from her aunt Nancy's estate the clerks weren't fussed about her last name and it's shown as 'Newton'.

This all absolutely explains why there were never any DNA matches from the whipthong maker's daughter in Utah. It has taken far too long to spot this and indeed to type this up, so I'll press send, and consider any points of clarification or useful images, later.

Also:

Henry Newton baptised 1800 turned out to be the grandfather of Thomas Davies (1861) born to an unmarried couple who himself turned out to be the mysterious 'wire drawer' named on the World War One marriage certificate of a son in Leeds.... whose grandson I had found an identified as 'J.D.' on GEDmatch on I think chromosome 6. It was all very labyrinthine.

William and Hannah Newton turned out to be born 'mother Susanna'. More to follow... 

 

Move over Somerset: Staffordshire is the new kid in town (pt 1)

In my youth it was easier finding out what was happening in horse-drawn Somerset than it was finding out what was happening on ITV. And the former was far more wholesome. I had only to hop up a few stairs above 'Next' and the faded leather-bound volumes in the disused probate registry opened so very easily. No remote control needed.

A gain 'here' equalled a piece of information 'there' as all the families east of the Mendips were connected somehow. You just had to find the right button. At 17 one slightly snowy December, I hopped in my elderly Fiesta and took those ancient addresses and went to visit them. Cousins were still there. Ralph Bush (born 6 November 1900), dairy farmer was still alive, nearly doing the tonne. Extraordinary to think that even the car I was driving has lately turned 50 - on some scrapheap somewhere.

But it all had to end. Reunions and memories and beautiful big trees and photographs, gravestones and stories....

Once the Haine Reunion 2005 had happened in Ohio, it was our swan song. The county had no more left to give. Just roads and endless car-ry traffic-fumed angry London visiting road filled roads. Once-pleasant cottages hard juxta'd onto the endlessly rolling tarmac, sucking in more unhappy Londoners bemoaning the stagnant lonely air. Old family strongholds selling up, and nowhere for anyone to live.

What a relief to escape. I was a genealogical nomad for a while, enjoying the links to Wales, to the Peak District, the Lake District fringes and for a while to Colombia. The joy of studying old maps proving far more reliable than smoky old lorry-belching Somerset. Goodbye old friend!

But then one day, a new county raised its head, and things would never be the same again.