What a tangled web we weave.....

I was looking at a notebook this morning and spotted something, the surname of Burchell.  I knew I had already a reference to that surname, so I pulled the Butcher file off the bookcase and started to plough my way through the pages.

The Butcher family are complicated. They held land in Surrey, in the rural parishes of Wonersh, Shere, Bramley and Hascombe. They inherited their wealth and property through marriages and wills with the Chandlers, Hunts,Simmonds and Hammond families.

Each will and document provides another mystery, which leads to more research, pondering and confusion.

Here is a mind map, written about 1993 of the complexities. There are no full dates, as this is simply a visual for when I am thinking!

The more I look at the file and documents the more confused and frustrated I become. There are several puzzles.

1. The marriage of Daniel Butcher & Elizabeth Simmonds is simply not in Surrey. The most likely is in Tillington Sussex in 1745 - a mere 15 miles away from Hascombe. 
2. Daniel & Elizabeth had two children - one in 1761 and another 1775. I descend from the son in 1775. We know from the various wills that Daniel and Elizabeth Simmonds did marry, it is the where and when that proves problematic. We know that the two children, James and Elizabeth both inherited from family members and their place within the family groups is correct. 
3. Despite this I still feel that there is almost another generation in between Daniel and his wife Elizabeth and their children. - I have checked there are no other marriages for a Daniel Butcher and Elizabeth Simmonds in the right time frame and within the confines of Surrey or Sussex. 

I am currently working now in the reverse direction and reading again all the wills and documentation and drawing out named relationships to see if I have missed anything.  

1. The bottom line of research is work from what you know, following the ancestral line of descent - done!
2. Have a paper trail of sources, documents and notes - done!

So, what have I missed?...... 

Postcard Friendship Friday - Old Tangley, Wonersh Circa 1908

Part of my Guildford & District Collection

Submitted as part of Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by The Best Hearts are Crunchy 

Family History Writing Challenge - Day 22

I can't quite remember how I got onto the next trail; I may at some point remember and I may not! John Butcher's wife stated that she was born in Artington. Now, I went back to the 1851 Census for Wonersh as that was the original source and noticed that whilst the census did say Artington it did not say Surrey. How could I have missed that? I turned to my trusty friend Google and did a search for Artington just to see what the results yielded. The result was Arlington in Sussex as a distinct possibility. So, Mary had probably come from Sussex. I turned to FamilySearch to see if that yielded any suitable marriages for a John Butcher to a Mary and bingo! Mary Baverstock married John Butcher in Wisborough Green Sussex 26 May 1823. Certainly Wisborough Green is what I would call the right bit of Sussex, close to the Surrey border. My John and Mary had their eldest child baptised in November 1823, so whilst not nine months between marriage and birth, It would not be unheard of for the bride to be pregnant at the point of the wedding. So the big question was, was this John and Mary the same as my John and Mary?

I had always felt that the Butcher's had originated from across the border in Sussex. I didn't have anything to substantiate that, just a hunch. Before I embarked upon parish records and census records I undertook another Google search for "Baverstock"+ Wisborough Green. I was surprised, it did show some results, and some that looked promising. Most importantly, it gave me the website and email address of a fellow researcher. Did we have a connection? Actually we did. The researcher had worked at the research line from the Baverstock name rather than, as I had from the Butcher line. Their website confirmed that they had also looked at the same census material as I had, so I felt confident that we indeed were researching the same family and more importantly that this family connected to mine. The clinching factor was the will of Charles Baverstock in 1846 when mention is made to Mary Butcher living in The Street, Wonersh.

What is intriguing is the name change from Bavister to Baverstock circa 1813.....but that is another story.

Word count 387

Family History Writing Challenge - Day 20

I was able to work forward on the Butcher family with relative ease. I still did not know the surname of his wife, a fact which frustrated me no end. I knew an approximate year, based upon the birth of their first son Charles in 1823. I descend from Charles. I searched every parish in Surrey for the marriage of John Butcher to a Mary born circa 1799. I had started with Guildford because on the 1851 census Mary had said she had been born in Artington Guildford. I could not find a marriage in Guildford, or Godalming the two main parishes either side of Artington, then I went into rural Surrey. Nothing. I searched for a marriage of a John Woolgar to a Mary for the same period. There was one, in Hascombe, Could this be it, given that just a generation or two before John there was links to Hascombe? No, The John and Mary in Hascombe were having their family in Hascombe while my John and Mary was having theirs in Wonersh. I double checked and crossed checked in case the children were baptised in both parishes, but no. They were two separate families. I wasn't even contemplating at this point if the two John's were connected. Frustration was an understatement. In disgust, I focused on their children.

Charles was the eldest of 9 children, born between 1823 and 1844, all but the last child born in Wonersh.

• Charles born 1823 *
• William born 1826 *
• Mary Anne born 1828
• Thomas born 1830
• Alfred born 1832
• James born 1835 *
• Henry born 1837
• Ellen Jane born 1841 died 1844
• John born 1844 died 1855 born in Shalford

Using the marriage sources I traced all the children. In keeping with the family tradition and the complications with marrying cousins and spouses with the same surnames Thomas married a Sarah Woolgar in 1861, and James married a Denyer in 1868.

Over the course of the last 24 years I have met just two other people who descend from the children of John and Mary, which I do find interesting. The line of Alfred moved to London, as does a later part of the family descended from William.

* What I find particularly fascinating is that I descend from Charles, I have met a contact whose wife descends from James and a contact whose line descends from William. A member of each of those lines of descent has a Thyroid condition which I find interesting.

As far as I know no one else in my family has this condition so is this coincidence, or is this something that is in the genetics?

Word count 445

Family History Writing Challenge - Day 19

My several times Great Grandparents were John Butcher born 1795 and Mary his wife born circa 1799. What has always fascinated me is that for a very long time I could not find John's birth record, all I had was an approximate year based upon the census details. Then I could not find his marriage. One thing I knew with certainty was that John and Mary had existed, had they not I would not be here!

I turned again to the rural parish of Wonersh, about 5 miles or so from Guildford and went systematically through the parish records. I started going through the census details, the 1841 census purely told me that John was born in Surrey, the 1851 gave more details, although not about his family. I then started extracting all the Butcher references to the parish. Eventually I wondered had John been illegitimate and baptised under his mother's name?

The clue to John's parentage was actually in a will. John was baptised as a Woolgar, and the base born to Sarah Woolgar. His father's will (James Butcher) admits that he is the illegitimate son of James Butcher and Sarah Woolgar, even though his parents marry in 1801. So John was born a Woolgar and yet lived his life as a Butcher. I wonder how he felt when he was 6 years old and his parents married? James Butcher and his wife Sarah also had another son born in 1802 who inherits the bulk of the Butcher estate, which was detailed in the will of James Butcher.

The strands of the family came together very slowly and without actual planning. As I said I had extracted all the Butcher references, and by doing this I came across James and then researched each of those individuals until I found a link with John. It was slow and took several years.

I then went to the records office. In those days Surrey Records Office was split into two, the Kingston office and that at Guildford known as the Muniment Room. It was a great place, attached to the museum and I often visited weekly. I called for some documents, I can't recall what now, but it would have been probably Butcher related. Whilst I waited I inspected the name card index, and just to kill the time whilst waiting for my documents to be delivered to the table I flicked immediately to the name of Butcher and when to John. Never for one moment inspecting to find anything. On the card index was the details of John and a reference to a taxation form for 1864.

I called for the document, which came in a miscellaneous file with some other documents relating to the same surname. Once at the table I started reading them. I then spotted his will. I knew it was my John from the death records and the omission from the 1881 Census. Had I not gone through the card index I would not have found the will. There are no records of the will at the probate office. Also in the pile was the envelope the will had been in along with a note saying that the documents had been handed into Wonersh Village post office and then donated to the records office.

From his father James, John had inherited a cottage in Wonersh Street. The cottage is still standing although the son of John that inherited it upon his father's death in 1877 sold the cottage. Likewise, there are some photographs in the archives, which were housed in the local studies library at Guildford and are now at the Surrey Records Office in Woking that showed a photograph of the house and details of whom had donated the photos, which were initially to Croydon library. They were donated by someone with the Butcher surname, unknown to my branch of the family.

Another loose end, just one of many connected with this crucial part of my ancestry.

Word count 660