Lynda Fase (lynda
@t fase.freeserve.co.uk) of Chingford, Essex, writes: I
hope this query is not too long. A lot of the detail is
relevant, but I have included a few bits and pieces which could have been left
out because I thought they might just be of interest to other people
reading the site. I have consulted original parish registers at HALS
for the places mentioned, as well as censuses, but I haven't looked at any
non-conformist records. All the people mentioned are
labourers, unless otherwise stated.
My 3x great grandfather, Jonathan Reynolds,
a labourer, was married in St Peter's, St Albans
on 23.8.1842 (to Ann Worham, born Bloomsbury,
daughter of a butler). His father's name was John,
and his residence at the time 'St Peter's'.
Very shortly afterwards, according to censuses, a daughter, Ann,
was born in St Pancras/Camden Town and then
a son, George, was baptised in London
Colney in 1848. In 1851, Jonathan,
Ann and these two children were living at Broad
Colney. Jonathan was then a
shepherd. By 1861 the family had moved to Barnet
and Jonathan had become a grocer. I haven't
found him in 1871 but did find in that census his married daughter, Ann
Slow, living in Barnet with her
husband and her brother George. When George
married in 1872, he gave his father's occupation as butcher. Jonathan
was buried in London Colney on 3.8.1880,
aged 66, and his abode was given as Barnet.
In both of the census entries Jonathan's
birth place is given as Ridge, but I have
searched the registers for Ridge, South
Mimms, Shenley, London
Colney and St Peters without
success. What I have found is a baptism of a Jonathan
Reynolds at exactly the right time (1.10.1815) in Sandridge
- parents John and Elizabeth.
The reason I was looking in Sandridge was to
investigate links between Jonathan and the one other Reynolds
family in London Colney in the 1841-61
censuses. These were John and Elizabeth,
aged '60' and '50' in 1841. John's
birthplace was Sandridge and Elizabeth's
Kings Walden or St
Paul's Walden. These two were married in Lilley
on 22.1.1810 and sons George and James
baptised there in August 1810 and June 1812. After that there is no more record
of them in Lilley and I have no idea where
they were between 1812 and 1841. The sons do appear in London
Colney censuses. James was with
his parents in 1841, married in 1842 and brought up a family in the village. He
was buried there in 1860, but his widow and family remained at least until 1871.
In 1881 the widow and eldest son were running a pub in Colchester.
The only trouble with James is that his age at marriage (27) and burial (44) is
consistently a little young for his date of baptism - but his birthplace is
always given as Lilley. There was a George
Reynolds with father called John
married at St Peters, St Albans in 1842, but
George is listed in the 1861 census as
unmarried, living with his widowed mother. He was buried in 1868, aged 56. John
was buried in 1860, aged 83 and Elizabeth in
1865, aged 75.
Going back, I think it is possible that Elizabeth
was baptised in Kings Walden on June 9th
1789, daughter of Thomas and Sarah
Saunders, and that John was the
son of George and Sarah
Reynolds, baptised in Sandridge
on 20.12.1778. That George Reynolds appears
in the Sandridge militia records of the
period, and the fact that two of his sons were buried together in 1784 ties in
with the rising and falling number of children listed for him in those records. John
and a sister, Sarah, were probably the only
surviving children. It looks as if John was
responsible for the pregnancy of Sarah White,
and in August 1801 marriage banns were read out. However, there was no marriage
and Sarah's child was baptised Sarah
Reynolds White in the following year. Perhaps John
took himself off to Lilley at this point! I
have found the marriage of Sarah Reynolds (John's
sister) and burials of George and Sarah
(his parents) but there was apparently not a large clan of Reynolds
in Sandridge in the early nineteenth century
- no other couples were baptising couples at the time when Jonathan
Reynolds was christened there.
I would be interested in your comments
(a) On the likelihood of the Jonathan Reynolds
baptised in Sandridge in 1815 being a third
son of John and Elizabeth.
They probably retained links with Sandridge,
because George, although baptised in Lilley,
gave Sandridge as his birthplace in the
1861 census. He clearly was either born there or had some reason to believe that
to be the case. I'm not quite sure how common a name Jonathan
was, but Mary Saunders, witness at the
wedding of John and Elizabeth
and possibly Elizabeth's sister, later gave
birth to an illegitimate son named Jonathan.
(b) On the likelihood of that Jonathan Reynolds
being my own ancestor. I am basing the possibility on the London
Colney link (particularly the fact that he was buried there even
though living in Barnet - I would expect
that to show the place had some family connection rather than being somewhere he
had just lived in for a few years), the name George
given to his son, and simply the coincidence of the right name coming up at the
right time in a place which could be linked. I know all of those are tenuous and
dangerous links to make - and the difference in birth place is a big sticking
point. Have you ever come across instances of Ridge
being confused with Sandridge ? I would
rather put this down to an enumerator's error since Jonathan
ought to have been familiar with both places, but that is unlikely to have
happened twice. I suppose it is not out of the question that he was born
in Ridge - very close to London
Colney - but taken to his father's previous parish church to be
baptised. Unfortunately neither James nor Jonathan
asked relatives to witness their marriages.
Do you have any suggestions as what more I could do to confirm or rule out these
suppositions, or to find the true parents of my Jonathan
?
.
Thank you for a very full and helpful account of your detailed
investigation. All family history researchers eventually reach a point where the
surviving evidence is incomplete or unreliable and I have covered the matter in
the topic
How can you be certain about ...
so will not repeat it here.As I see it you have a John
(who came from Sandridge) and Elizabeth
Reynolds who had children in Lilley
in 1810 and 1812 and Sandridge in 1815, and
who ended up in London Colney. We therefore
know that John moved around, and may have
been in other parishes at intermediate dates. You don't mention his occupation
which might give a clue to his moves. (Some people had more mobile occupations,
others could have moved because their employer moved. Agricultural labourers
moves were often done during hiring fairs - and all the places mentioned are
near enough to be have access to the St Albans
fair.) I get the impression that John would
have been unlikely to have left a will
which is unfortunate as a will can be useful if it identifies living relatives.
Because he moved John may well have lived in
a cottage provided by an employer and there may be no record of such a tenancy.
If he lived in copyhold property there could be a reference in a manorial role -
but this is unlikely as he moved around. Information from Tithe maps may provide
an address, but is unlikely to provide any relationship information.
As I see it the only real problem is that the census says that
your Jonathan Reynolds was born in Ridge,
which does not fit with a Jonathan Reynolds
of the same age who was baptised in Sandridge.
I don't know if you had realised it but if Jonathan
was born in Ridge he may have been born in
what is now London Colney. This is because
the parish of London Colney only came into
existence in 1826 - and part of the new parish was formerly part of Ridge.
Would you be less unhappy if the place of birth was recorded as London
Colney.
My advice to you is that you work on the hypothesis that there
was one Jonathan Reynolds and realise that
you may never find indisputable contemporary evidence to confirm this. The
important thing to do is to keep a weather eye open for any relevant evidence
which might suggest that there was more than one possible Jonathan
Reynolds. (We all get such problems - one of my ancestors was
illegitimate and while we know the name of the father there are two
possibilities! We may never know whether the father of the child was a randy
young man, or the young man's father!)
[There is no reason to think that there is any connection
between your Jonathan Reynolds and my Jacob
Reynolds, who moved to Sandridge
from Norfolk.]
Lynda Fase replied: Thank you for putting this on the
site. I did think it was a bit of a lost cause, myself, but perhaps someone else
will recognise something in there. I do actually already have an address
for John because the censuses put him in a
cottage in Lobel Lane - by the river,
opposite the church, and in Shenley parish
for census purposes, even after 1826. Jonathan,
when he was there, lived further down the river, towards Shenley.
I lived in London Colney when I was a
child and went back recently to have a look at these places. The parish
arrangement round there has always confused me and in previous bouts of research
I used to flounder round the census without really knowing where I was or
whether I'd checked everywhere. I think I did finally work it out this time
though, and saw that there are bits of what might be called London
Colney in Ridge parish. John
was a labourer, by the way, or a 'husbandman' in the Sandridge
records - which I guess is the same thing since nearly all of the men had that
occupation. In 1851 John was actually a
'pauper' so you're certainly right about a will not being likely.
Just a note about
"Husbandman" as an occupation. There seems to be some uncertainty
about its usage. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives
"A man who tills and cultivates the soil, a farmer". I find
it in two modern lists prepared for the genealogist: A Dictionary of Old
Trades, Titles and Occupations, by Colin Waters, defines it as "Farmer
who worked with animals. Also a general term for a farmer in the 1700s."
Joyce Culling's Occupations - A Preliminary List defines it as
"A tenant farmer". Ogilvie's Victorian Imperial
Dictionary of the English Language records it as "A farmer ,
cultivator or tiller of the ground, one engaged in agriculture". Ann
Fisher's 18th century Spelling Dictionary and Expositor of the English
Language gives "One employed in tillage".
My own feeling is that normally it was used for someone who
had land to farm, rather than as an agricultural labourer employed by others,
and may well have been applicable to many people in the days of the strip
fields, before enclosure. In the 19th century it is very rarely used as a
description of occupation in baptismal registers - except that one vicar
regularly used it in Sandridge for a time to
describe people whom his predecessor and successor would have described as
labourers. It would be interesting to know if there are other parishes where it
is used in the 19th century baptismal registers,
There are web page
for London Colney, Ridge,
Sandridge, St
Peters (St Albans)
If you can add to the information given
above tell me.