Which WREN is which?

I was updating the details for my 4x great-grandfather Benjamin WREN last night, when I came across another potential stumbling block with the identity of his parents.

I knew from the census that Benjamin was born around 1803 in Framfield, Sussex. In the Sussex Family History Group Data Archive there is a baptism for a Benjamin WREN in Framfield on the 7th Jan 1803. His parents were Thomas and Sarah WREN, so whilst I was there I looked for other children of Thomas and Sarah.

I came up with another ten children, the earliest was Mary, baptised in 1768, and the last child was Hannah, baptised in 1810. I cursed my ancestors for giving me so much work to do when I wanted to get to bed, but something didn’t seem right.

The forty year time span seemed unlikely, and the last two entries were for Thomas senior and Sarah. So, much like the situation with the HOLMANs in Burstow, Surrey, it seemed like I had a couple of different Thomas and Sarah’s here producing children at the same time.

When I checked the Sussex Marriage Index things became a little clearer. There are three marriages of Thomas WREN to a Sarah around that time in Framfield. Firstly a Thomas WREN married Sarah HARTFIELD in 1764, then a Thomas WREN married Sarah CORNWALL in 1783 and lastly Thomas WREN married Sarah COLEMAN in 1800. The final marriage was by licence, which reveals more helpful information. Thomas WREN was a widower aged 60 and Sarah COLEMAN was a widow aged 36, both were from Framfield.

So it looks like Thomas WREN married Sarah HARTFIELD, had several children including a Thomas in 1772, but he was not the middle Thomas. Then Thomas’ first wife died and he married Sarah COLEMAN who was many years younger than him, carried on having children.

The question is which set of Thomas and Sarah’s were the parents of my Benjamin WREN? I can rule out Thomas WREN and Sarah HARTFIELD, as presumably she had died before Benjamin was born, because Thomas had re-married by then, but it seems like it could be either of the other two.

My next step will to have a look at burial records for Framfield, and hopefully the burials for Sarah WREN will help separate the two. There is also the possibility that one of the Thomas’ left a will which might help differentiate between the two.

Weekly Genealogy Preview (for week 49)

Most of the week was pretty quiet, but I made up for it yesterday with almost a whole day devoted to family history. My Christmas Tree Project will be my main priority this week, both searching and working on the presentation of the chart.

• Continue working on the Christmas Tree project, filling in missing details. This week will mainly be the East Sussex side of my tree, around Framfield, Blackboys and Buxted. I noticed the other day that I am missing lots of death dates for my ancestors from there.
• I still haven’t prepared a plan for a visit to the London Family History Centre. I put off a visit this weekend to give me more time to prepare, but I am rapidly running out of time.
• I need to create headshots of my ancestors to appear in my Christmas Tree chart. Cropping the photos I have and linking them into Family Historian. Also create a generic “missing photo” headshot.
• I also need to work on the text scheme for the chart boxes, trying to make the data I have look neat and tidy, be easy to read and informative.
• Try and clear some more paper from the stuff to sort folder. There are no large collections left in it now, so it is just a question of picking out one page at a time and deciding what to do with it, before I throw it away.

Genealogy Saturday was a success

Genealogy Saturday was a success.

First I spent some time on the FamilySearch Record Search site, looking at the Diocese of Durham Bishops’ Transcripts. I had searched here before (in the parish of Staindrop, Durham) for the siblings of Isabella GRAHAM, my 3x great-grandmother, but I had never finished it off.

Some of the baptism entries were quite detailed so I was able to establish that Isabella’s father Joseph was from Hexham, Northumberland. So now I have added another new county to my list of places.

After Durham and Northumberland I headed back down south, to Gloucestershire and the BATEMAN and JACKSON families. I wasn’t so lucky here, despite some records on the IGI the dates and places I was after weren’t available.

Next I moved back closer to home and the area around Singleton, Sussex. I have more ancestor from these parts than I first believed. Here I added many events for the BOXALL, RICHARDS, PITT, TARGETT and CHANDLER families.

I have identified a potential problem with Thomas PITT, my 4x great-grandfather. I know he married Ann BONE in Stoughton, Sussex in 1798, and he appears to have died before the 1841 census.

Fortunately it is not that common a name, so I should, with a little bit of searching, be able to find a burial record and hopefully an age at burial. This should enable me to work out a birth year, and I can carry on backwards from there.

All in all I added forty new individuals to my database, several of them 5x great-grandparents, and many new events. Also I finished off sorting the George Thomas GASSON stuff in my stuff to sort folder, which was really pleasing.

Genealogy Saturday

As I haven’t got much family history done this week I have decided that today is going to be a genealogy day. I have a couple of other jobs to do about the house, but apart from that I am going to get on with my Christmas Tree Project and a bit of filing.

It feels so good to be sitting down in front of my computer and to be able to devote a serious amount of time to family history.

It feels so self-indulgent. No travelling, no Christmas shopping, just genealogy and perhaps a few blog posts. Bliss!

What are genealogists of the future going to have to look forward to?

This story on the BBC News website caught my eye the other day. The basic story is that Guy Etchells has used a Freedom of Information request to try and gain access to details from the National Registration enumeration, which took place on the 29th September 1939.

The implication is that like his previous request to access the 1911 census, this could possibly lead to an early release of the data, like it did eventually for the 1911 census (and then presumably similar moaning about the price and quality of the transcription).

Given that the 1931 census has been destroyed and there was no census in 1941 (due to the Second World War), the data contained within this enumeration will probably help fill in a few gaps for some genealogists who are struggling to get past the first few generations of their family tree.

Personally I don’t think there would be much contained in the enumeration that would be of importance to me, and it is certainly not something that I think I shall be getting to excited about.

Of course there are many issues involved in deciding whether the data should be made available, not least of which is the fact that many of the individuals listed will still be alive, and in much greater numbers than was the case with the 1911 census.

What worries me most is what future generations of genealogists are going to have to look forward to?

If this data is released early then there will be nothing left between the 1921 and 1951 census. Assuming that the hundred year rule applies, between 2022 and 2052 genealogists will have very little left to look forward to. Put yourself in their shoes, could you imagine going for 30 years without the release of a major new data collection.

So fellow family historians, please lets not be too greedy, save something for your children and grand-children to get excited about. They should know the excitement of the release of a new data collection, the anticipation of the possible discoveries, and the frustrations of finding the website overloaded and a dodgy index.

What do you think? Are we too greedy and impatient as genealogists? Should we save of the excitement and frustrations for future generations? Leave me a comment and let me know.