Isabel Sheaf

My grandmother's name was Isabella Sheaf. In the Sheaf family, her name was almost unique. As I have been researching the different lines of this family, Isabella or its variations has rarely featured.

Going back about 400 years however, there are fleeting references to an Isabel Sheaf, daughter of Thomas Sheaf  DD and Maria Wilson. Up until now, she has been a shadowy figure, mentioned by her birth name in only one family will. The first reference I found to Isabel was in the will of her uncle, David Rawson (Husband to the sister of Maria Wilson) citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, in 1616. He leaves her "three pounds to be bestowed in a piece of plate and given her at her age of twenty one years or at the day of her marriage, which ever shall first happen." From this, one presumes that Isabel is not yet married OR 21, putting her birth sometime between 1595 and 1616.

In the absence of any record for birth, marriage or death for an Isabel Sheaf at the appropriate time, this necessitated some alternative research strategies. One of the difficulties with this family is that they consistently referred to women in wills by their married family names only - eg: daughter Westley, daughter Norwood, sister Whitfield, sister Bale etc. Grrrrrr!

After trying many different combinations of names and places I found baptism/burial records for children of Thomas and Isabel Norwood in the parish of St Alphege, Canterbury and also in Harbledown, a hamlet just outside Canterbury. The children were named Mary, Rebecca, William and Isabel which fitted into the context of family naming patterns; and the dates between 1633 and 1639 also fitted an appropriate time frame. A little more research yielded the information that Thomas Norwood was an Anglican Clergyman, born in St Mildred Canterbury, ordained as a preacher to the diocease of Canterbury and Rochester in 1632 and appointed curate of the parish of Harbledown in 1636. A perfect fit! He died in 1637 and in his will named his widow Isabel and daughters Mary, Rebecca and Isabel.

The next reference that seems to match Isabel, was in the 1639 will of her father Thomas Sheaf, also an Anglican Clergyman. He refers to her as daughter Norwood but gives no other indication of her identity.

In 1647, Isabel's brother Edmund Sheaf died. He was a citizen and mercer of London and had married Elizabeth Cotton. He also names his sisters by their married names, but sister Norwood has disappeared from the list and "sister Bale" appears. From this I deduced that Isabel Sheaf, then Norwood, had remarried to a Mr Bale. I had a look at more Canterbury registers and found a baptism for John Bale in 1646, son of John and Isabel. This looked hopeful!

I cross checked against some other family wills and found a legacy to John Bale, son of Dr John Bale of Canterbury in the will of Isabel's brother Grindall Sheaf in 1680. Grindall (also an Anglican Clergyman) named several nieces and nephews but going by his birth date I think Dr John Bale was Isabel's son, rather than her husband, making the legatee a great-nephew of Grindall.

It is also highly probable that Isabel and John Bale had at least one other child, a daughter Isabel, who married Thomas Smith in 1677 at St Mary Bredin, Canterbury. Another highly probable link is that a John Bale of Canterbury married Elizabeth Juxon in 1676 also at St Mary Bredin. The Juxon family were connected to the Sheafs through the marriage of Edmund Sheaf (Isabel's brother) and Elizabeth Cotton, who was the daughter of Samuel Cotton and Elizabeth Juxon.

All things considered, I think it is highly probable that the Isabel Sheaf, daughter of Thomas and Maria, married first Thomas Norwood and then John Bale and bore at least 6 children.

The Stokes family of Cheltenham

This family is one of my lesser researched lines and I know very little about them. George Stokes was a clergyman in Cheltenham, educated at Oxford in about 1726.

He and his wife Mary had about 9 children most of whom were baptised in Cheltenham, although there are some for whom I cannot find baptism records. George died sometime before his wife Mary, as she was a widow when she wrote her will in 1779.

 Their daughter Jane married David Hughes Holland of Mickleton and they had two children Thomas Kemble Holland and another David Hughes Holland. I have always been interested to find out where the Kemble part of the name came from but can as yet find no evidence of a family relationship. However I have found a few tantalizing clues.

 1. Thomas and M Kemble were witnesses at the marriage of Jane Stokes and David Hughes Holland in Cheltenham.

 2. In his will of 1770, Thomas Kemble Esq of Tewkesbury leaves a bequest of 10 pounds to Mrs Mary Stokes of Cheltenham, widow.

 3 Thomas Kemble's wife Margaret leaves a property to Charles Wynne, the son of Robert Wynne and Dorothy Stokes - a sister of Jane Stokes.

 4. Thomas Kemble Holland and his wife Temperance Tomes use the names Stokes and Wynne when they name their children.

 5. Thomas Kemble of Tewkesbury had a brother Daniel who was also a Church of England Clergyman.

 6. Thomas Kemble's mother was Elizabeth Michell of Cheltenham....maybe this is where the connection is? Mysteries to solve!

Will the real Humphrey Colles please stand up.

Just who was Humphrey Colles of Castelet, who married Elinore Carter; the gentleman who is my 9x great-grandfather? Primary evidence of his life is very scant (although I live in hope that some will turn up) so my best conjecture as to who he is is based on tiny, disparate clues from across the record books. As much for my own benefit as anyone else's, I will set out my current thesis as to his identity. Any other evidence confirming or denying this conjecture would be gratefully received!

 Things I am very certain of:
 1: Humphrey Colles is named in the 1627 will of John Carter of Nether Swell, Gloucestershire, as his son in law.

 2: A child Eleanore Colles, was baptised in Sevenhampton in 1616; the daughter of Humphrey Colles and Elinore.

 3 Between 1628 and 1637, three children were baptised in Guiting Power, the children of Humphrey Colles and Elinore.

 4. The Colles property at Guiting Power, was known as the Manor of Cateslade or the Manor of Chattreland or the Manor of Castelet. These names seem to be interchangeable but all to refer to the same place.

 5. This Humphrey Colles was memorialised in the following text: Epicedia - Funeral verses upon the much lamented death of that most loyal subject and religious gentleman Mr Hmphrey Colles of Cateslade; departed this life Nov 15 and was solemnly interred Nov 18 Anno salutis 1661 Ætatis suæ.77 This would make his birth date about 1584 and his death in 1661.

 6. This Humphrey Colles was named in several legal transactions with the associated families of Carter, Lawrence, Broadway, Goddard and Fettiplace. The Carters, Lawrences and Broadways were connected via his marriage with Elinore Carter and the Goddards and Fettiplaces were connected through his son John Colles who married Culpepper Goddard.

 My conjecture is that Humphrey Colles of Cateslade is the third son of John Colles of Barton in Somerset and Ann Thynne or possibly his second wife Winifred Leigh. This is based on the following:

 1. In the will of George Colles 1632, son of John Colles of Barton, he makes his brother Humphrey Colles executor and also mentions Humphrey's wife Eleanor and son George.

 2. The first son of John Colles, also John, was born in about 1582 according to his memorial inscription in the church at Pitminster, Somerset. This means that Humphrey could have been born in about 1584 as the third son.

 3. Chancery records from the reign of James 1 (1603-1625) link the families of Thynne, Colles of Barton and the Chamberlayne family. Eleanore Colles (see point 2 above) married Edmund Chamberlayne of Maughersbury.

 4. His father and both his brothers are also linked to funeral verses and sermons. In this case, they were written by William Schlater who was the rector of Pitminster in Somerset and who had been sponsered by John Colles senior. Assuming the family shared a common religious observance, it would not be surprising that they were all commemorated in some way. As far as I know the Epicedia for Humphrey Colles has not been attributed to William Schlater.

 In the absence of anything more concrete, this is what I am running with, but who's to say what other pieces of the puzzle are still yet to be discovered. I may yet find that I have put all the pieces of sky in the wrong way around!

Reading wills and inventories | Tracing Ancestors In The UK

Reading wills and inventories | Tracing Ancestors In The UK I found this useful blog post today while I was checking up on some terminology used in one particular will. A good general overview!

Old Wills and the Search for Humphrey Colles.

Old wills are a wonderful source of family information and can sometimes be very useful in determining family relationships across different branches and generations. In an email today from my Mum, she said "My eyes are worn out from looking at old Wills". Mine feel a bit that way too - all that squiggly writing, little punctuation, archaic language and sometimes fuzzy imaging can be a challenge to decipher, but well worth the effort. We have been on the track of one of my most determinedly elusive ancestors, one Humphrey Colles, who married Elinore Carter. It is only through wills that we really know about this relationship. Relevant parish records of baptisms, marriages and deaths for this couple are few and far between and yet we know that Humphrey and Eleanor had at least 6 children, possibly more, and that Humphrey was in control of large amounts of money and property as an Executor, Overseer and Beneficiary in a number of wills. At this stage, I am pretty sure that Humphrey was born in about 1584 and died in 1661 at the age of 77, but some really solid evidence would be oh so very welcome!

Carter Correspondence.

This week I have been engaged in a very interesting email correspondence with William, who is researching the Carter family and connections in Gloucestershire. Rather than repeat it all here, here is a link to the relevent part of his blog. Giles Carter I enjoyed reading William's speculative essay and I hope you do too.

The Allday Brothers

I like to do research the same way I like to travel. That is to say, I seem to spend a lot of time exploring the little side streets, alleys and hidden lanes instead of sticking to the highway!

I was sorting out some Fletcher census records the other day and the name of Richard Allday caught my eye. He married Elizabeth Fletcher, daughter of Robert and Muriel Fletcher. Richard and Elizabeth feature rather prominently in the Fletcher family story due to a long and drawn out litigation involving significant bequests to Elizabeth from her Uncle Richard and also her parents. (That is really another story!) However, the reason Richard Allday waved a flag at me was that I had only a few days before looked at two other Allday gentlemen who had married two Walford sisters. Sarah and Ann Walford were daughters of William Walford and Sarah Tomes of Long Marston (Marston Sicca). They are in my first cousin line but 5 x removed. The marriages all seemed to take place within a few years of each other and the Allday -Walford marriages took place in the same church - Halford, Warwickshire. Out of idle curiosity, I wondered if the Allday men were related and if so, how closely.

After a bit of scrummaging around, I am quite confident in saying that the three Allday men, Richard, Thomas and Joseph were brothers, born in Birmingham between 1796 and 1803. Interestingly, the censuses reveal that they were movers and shakers in the meat industry. Richard was a farmer and cattle dealer, Thomas was a butcher and Joseph's wife Ann ran a 'celebrated' tripe house and coffee shop! Talk about paddock to plate! The families must have had a relatively close relationship with each other as sometimes children from one family are living in the home of another family at census time. This is particularly the case for Joseph and Ann who don't appear to have had any children of their own.

 Joseph went on to become a prominent and controversial Councillor in Birmingham, starting as editor of a 'scurrilous weekly periodical' The Argus, which took as its motto " Yes, I am proud. I must be proud to see men not afraid of God, afraid of me!" Funnily enough, this little side trip into an almost unrelated family connection is leading me out into some more familiar territory. It appears that after his wife Sarah Walford died, butcher Thomas Allday remarried a woman from Quinton in Gloucestershire called Helen Southam. Her father was Thomas Corbett Southam who appears as an executor, overseer and beneficiary in several Fletcher and connected wills. Another trail to follow!

Synchronicity!

When I first started researching several years ago, I got sidetracked onto a line that was only very indirectly associated with the family. I was interested in a man called Cotterell Corbett, who built the farmhouse that my grandmother Isabella grew up in. According to my mother, who has visited the house, Honeybourne Manor Farm House itself was built in 1831 (this is carved into the guttering). On the lintel of a door into the dining room is the following verse: "Fools build houses for wise men to live in - Thus runs the ancient proverb. This house was built by Cotterell, and now belongs to Robert." [The Robert mentioned would have been Robert Fletcher]

 The Cotterell Corbett of Honeybourne Manor Farm was a son of Michael Corbett and Rebecca Ashwin and was a second cousin several times removed of my Grandmother. I got a bit carried away and at one stage checked relationships and was getting things like "so and so is the uncle of the husband of the sister of......." Quite ridiculous really! I put it all aside and got back to more relevant research along the original Sheaf lines. Or so I thought....

Last weekend, after following up some more of the Fletcher/Smith family both Mum and I (who are in different states might I add) came up with John Smith marrying Muriel Corbett in Lower Quinton in 1708. Bells started to ring wildly and I searched through the data base and found that this was a marriage I already had discovered in the irrelevant Corbett line! Suddenly the woman who was the aunt of the cousin of the sister of the uncle blah blah blah was my 6 x great-grandmother! And the lesson from all this? If you do the research, keep it! Who knows how it might tie in.

Muriel Smith

A breakthrough! For ages I have put off investigating the family of Muriel Smith, who married Richard Fletcher, because of the fact that she was a Smith! Not that Smith is anything but a fine and honourable name, I was just daunted by the idea that it would be difficult to sort out. Anyway, after some email correspondence with my mentor (thanks Mum!) I took the plunge. I had known for a while the name of Muriel's father was Robert, but other than that - nothing. Some research into old wills led me to Preston on Stour, and the parish registers there confirmed her father as Robert and her paternal grandparents as John and Muriel. Her father Robert married Elizabeth Cleeve at Whitchurch in Warwickshire and then it appears they moved to Charringworth near Ebrington. It was here that Elizabeth, Muriel's mother, died in 1764. Muriel was only about 3 at the time. I cannot find another marriage for Robert - I am almost certain he remained single for the rest of his life, 'til he died in 1797. His will leaves everything to his daughter Muriel, and then to her five children. To my delight he inserts a phrase that her inheritance is to be hers alone and that her present nor future husbands not have anything to do with it! The only missing piece in the story of Muriel is her baptism. I have looked closely through the images of the Preston on Stour registers to no avail. I have done searches for her baptisms at both Whitchurch and Ebrington but as that is not throwing up anything useful in the transcriptions I will have to look at the images for those too. If that is not successful I will have to think again!

Progress - one more generation.

I have been stuck for ages at the brick wall of the Robert Fletcher that married his "cousin" Muriel Fletcher in 1813. In a very round-about way using some information I had about a Robert Robbins Fletcher who was a very distant connection of the family in the Honeybourne area (he married Mary Ashwin, a sister of Phoebe Ashwin who married another Fletcher, Richard, also of Honeybourne), I was able to work backwards to the origin of the Robbins name. Why I thought that following that line would be helpful I don't know....call it a hunch! William Fletcher of Moreton in Marsh married Elizabeth Robins of Blockley in 1758. They had at least three children Thomas, Robert and Joseph. Thomas was the father of Robert Robbins Fletcher and his brother Robert, son of William, was the Robert who married Muriel. Wills, some online legal documents, and a whole lot of BDM data all seem to tie this in. It just seemed to be such a convoluted way to work one generation back; but when the direct way seems blocked I suppose there is no alternative but to try to sneak around it by a more circuitous route!Anyway, I felt very jubilant about cracking the puzzle!

I love monumental inscriptions!

And of course, the people who trudge around churchyards making transcriptions of aged and weathered headstones. Hats off to you, because they are such a boon to the family historian. After finding Ann Fletcher's marriage to John Jackson, I thought I had better check out this "Norton" from whence he came (great phrase that!) Turns out to be a place called Norton Lindsey in Warwickshire with the Jacksons being a prominent farming family of the time. The inscription for Ann Jackson very kindly identified her as a "daughter of Richard Fletcher of Charringworth" Another document I found courtesy of Dear Google indicated that her death was recorded by the coroner as "a Visitation from God", the modern equivalent being of natural causes.

Susannah Fletcher died 1814

I have been trying to get the last few details about the children of my 4X great grandparents, Richard Fletcher and Muriel Smith. They had seven children and four of those survived to adulthood. Yesterday I discovered what became of their daughter Susannah, baptised at Ebrington in 1786. Dear Google threw up a snippet from an old book published in 1814 that mentioned a Miss Fletcher, daughter of the late Rch. Fletcher of Weston Subedge, who die at Bath in 1814. A quick search through the National Burial Index gave me Susanna Fletcher buried at Walcot (near Bath) in Somerset. Quite what she was doing there I don't know. Had she been poorly and gone to Bath to "take the waters"? She had received a bequest in the will of her father who died in 1813. Maybe she used some of the money to express her independence and travel away from home. The only child still eluding me is daughter Ann. I have not yet found a baptism record for her, but she is mentioned in both the wills of her parents and also in some legal documents arising from the inheritance disputes connected with those wills. She married a Mr John Jackson of Norton in Warwickshire in 1817 and in 1824, according to the legal documents, was still without children. More work required here!

John Fletcher - a twisty tale.

I am surprised by how mobile some of our ancestors were. We tend to think of people staying put for generations in a single town or village, and yes, sometimes this is the case. But sometimes the paper trail reveals a series of moves that can take a lot of painstaking unpicking before the puzzle pieces fall into place. This seems to be the case with my 6 x great grandfather John Fletcher. He was born in Ebrington in 1669 and it was there that his first child was born in 1695. The register does not mention a name for the mother. This child went on to become Mary Pool of my previous posts. The next journey for this little family appears to take them to Harvington, near Evesham, where four more children were baptised. However, before I discovered the Harvington connection, I had found a baptism record in the Wellesbourne register for Elizabeth Fletcher 1704, daughter of John and Ann Fletcher of Harvington. The dates seemed to fit so I investigated the Wellesbourne registers more closely and found two more baptisms, one for Robert in 1709 and one for Richard in 1712. I was particularly excited by this as the will of Richard Fletcher of Ebrington 1779, indicated I should be looking for him belonging to a family with siblings called Mary, Robert and Thomas. His burial record also indicated that he had been born abt 1712! So, with Mary and Robert in hand, I knew that if I could locate an appropriate baptism for a Thomas Fletcher I would be in the ball park. Time to follow up the Harvington clue. Dear Google led me to a website of the Harvington History group that has, with all the appropriate permissions, made freely available transcriptions of the Harvington parish registers. A quick search of these and I had my Thomas, as well as a William, Ann, and another Richard. Their births all slotted neatly into the gaps between the Wellesbourne baptisms, although my heart did sink momentarily when I discovered the second Richard. However further investigations revealed his burial the year after his birth. So my John Fletcher - born in Ebrington, lived in Harvington and Wellesbourne, where he died in 1725. What he did that took him to these places I don't know, but I would certainly love to find out! My next task will be to find out who Ann his wife was and where they were married.

Mary Fletcher married John Pool

Today I discovered that Mary Fletcher, mentioned in the previous post, married a chap called John Pool in Chipping Campden in 1724. They went on to have at least six children baptized in Chipping Campden - Charles (who was mentioned in Richard Fletcher's 1779 will) as well as John, Thomas, Mary, Elizabeth and Joseph. I wonder if the other children were not legatees because they had died before the will was written or whether they had been provided for in other ways? Hopefully some further investigation of Chipping Campden registers may go some way to answering that question. And while Mary Fletcher is not a direct ancestor of mine, but is a many times great aunt, I find that it is often useful to sort out the sidelines to narrow down the candidates for the direct line! Well....that is my theory. Oh dear, I am starting to sound like Ann Elk! For a little Friday Funny, here is Ann Elk herself!

Fletcher family of Ebrington

I finally feel as though I am starting to unwind some of the convolutions of this family. My grandmother Isabella Sheaf of Honeybourne was descended twice over from the Fletchers, with the marriage of Robert Fletcher and his cousin Muriel Fletcher in 1813. They were her great grandparents. The Fletchers are an important part of the Sheaf story not just because of this double line, but also because Isabella's childhood home at Honeybourne Manor Farm came into the Sheaf family through this marriage. Muriel Fletcher's parents were Richard Fletcher and Muriel Smith who were from the Aston Magna area near Ebrington in Gloucestershire. Richard was a child of Richard Fletcher and Sarah ? also of Ebrington. By collating all the BDMs I can find from the Ebrington registers and online indexes etc I have come to the conclusion that Richard Fletcher 1712-1779 (Muriel's grandfather) was a son of John Fletcher born Ebrington abt 1669. At this stage I have John's other children as Mary (born 1695 Ebrington), Robert and Thomas. Mary married Mr Pool and they had a child Charles. Thomas married somebody and had at least three children Thomas, Richard and Robert but as yet I have not narrowed down any specific dates for them. These are all named as legatees in an abstract of Richard's will 1779. Richard's 1779 will also mentions a niece, Mary Holtham wife of Abel Holtham of Wellesbourne. They were married in Wellesbourne in 1762. She must be a daughter of either Robert or Thomas, but at this point in time I am not sure which. Richard appears to have acquired considerable amounts of farmland in his lifetime, mentioning land/property in Ilmington, Ebrington, Hidcote and Saintbury. These are the leads I am currently following in order to find out more.

An introduction...

I have started this blog in the hope that firstly, it will help me clarify and organize my genealogical research into the Sheaf families of Kent, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and London and secondly, that it might put me in touch with other researchers or descendants of these families with whom I can share information and stories. I have been puddling away with my research for a couple of years now, building on earlier research from my mother and my Aunt. Some family lines are quite detailed and others are much more sketchy - a typical work in progress I would say! Anyway, I am going to dive right in and publish snippets as I go, depending on what I am looking into at the time. At the moment, for instance, I am untangling the Gorgon's knot of Fletchers from the Ebrington, Blockley, Ilmington region of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire.....but more of that in the next post!