Researching Before 1700

some sources for the 17th century

Else Churchill

www.sog.org.uk

• The Vestry and Parish Officials – incumbent, overseers of the

poor, churchwardens, constable

• The Diocese and Archdeacon – Prerogative (Archbishops),

Consistory (Bishops) & Archdeaconry Church Courts,

proctors, summoners, apparators

• Quarter Session & Assize Courts – criminal courts –

justices of the peace & magistrates

• Manorial Courts – customary lores and laws of the manor –

lord of the manor, steward or reeve, jury, constable

• Equity Courts – courts of chancery, exchequer, requests,

star chamber, wards & liveries

• State - State Papers and taxes

Who governed our ancestors lives in 17th century?

Parish Registers • Baptisms

• Marriages

• Burials

From 1538 in England and Wales

From c 1660 in Scotland

Originals in local county record offices

Copies and indexes at Society of Genealogists

Many indexed in other ways

Cohabitation?

• Morgan Percival “one Rebecca to whom he says he was married” and their daughter were sent back to Oxford from Salisbury in 1599.

• In the same year Thomas Wheler, a wandering vagrant was sent back to Romsey, Hampshire from Salisbury with Elizabeth Carpenter “ a lewd woman whom he alleges to be his wife”.

• Humphrey Pearce and Margaret Hooper “living lewdly together and not married” were sent back to Southampton.

• In 1631 James Groce, wandering with Anne Wooddes, affirmed that she was his wife (which on examination proved not to be the case) that they had had one child who had died and that she was pregnant”.

• “Joan Grobbyn is to be whipped openly since she was lately delivered in St Edmund’s parish Salisbury of a third bastard child , begotten upon her as she affirms and confesses by one Thomas Whyattt, late a servant to John Voucher of Salisbury. She says that one Battyn a joiner, deceased, is the father of the first child, a son yet living but she does not remember the name of the father of the second child, a daughter because he was a stranger to her. Also she says she had had no punishment for the same”

Poverty in Early Stuart Salisbury, Wilts RS vol. xxxi [1598-1699 – drawn from local register of passports for vagrants, local project for the relief of the poor, monthly overseers accounts and papers1635, Workhouse accounts 1627-30.]

The Commonwealth Gap?

In time of Warre, people made use of whom they could get,

without minister,clark or bell St Mary’s Reading, PRs 1641-2

“Confused times of war occasioned some confusion in the register” St Giles Reading, PRs 1646

In the time of the Civil Wars he was, by the power

of the sword, violently kept out of his living from

1646 till Michaelmas 1660, when by Law he was

Restored and in that compass of time the register had

been kept very imperfectly Memorandum in PRs by Mr Antram, Vicar of Helton, Dorset

The Commonwealth Gap

Parish registers of Sholden Kent reconstructed from

1630s

“This book was lost five yeares being carried away

(ut dicit) by Mr Nicols when he was sequestrated

and came nott to our hands till Anno 1662 after my

sequestration and restoration. Witness my hand

Jams Buville Vicar ibid. Divers who were baptized at

Sholden about these years were at Northborn in the

register books there as you may see”

New Ideas – Civil Marriages?

• 1653 “act touching

of the marriage and

registering thereof”

appointed a register

(registrar) to record

marriages by JPs –

Civil Registration of

Marriages

The above mentioned Parliament

had no colour of a Parliament,

but a Convention by Oliver Cromwell

when General without a choyce of the

people AD 1653; and soe their act for

a Register in every parish was noe act;

and since made voyde by the soe called

Parliament Cerne Abbas PRs

Gaps in Marriage Registers?

Justices Note book of Captain John Pickering 1656-60 (Thoresby Society vol 11)

Marriage 15 September 1657

Md That Will Barber & Marye Swindell was this day in the prsence of Will Swindell of Merefield;Thos Barker of the same; Edward Barker of the same Clothrs duly marrid at West Ardsley before me.

1660

On the Restoration of Charles II pre Civil

War legislation was largely reinstated. Old

PRs were brought out of service if they

survived. The entries recorded by

registrars are often retrospectively

recorded into the old PRs 1653-60.

Church courts reinstated

Significant Dates

• 1694 Stamp Duty on vellum or parchment which any licence or certificate of marriage shall be engrossed or written

• 1695 Duty on registration of marriages (paupers exempt) – Many registers annotated with P (Paid? or Pauper?)

– Listed those persons in parish liable for tax together with names, titles, estates qualifications and sums payable

– Could not marry in a peculiar place without banns or licence

– Moves against lawless parishes » E.G. St James Dukes Place, Holy Trinity Minories, Fleet Prison

which deemed themselves duty free areas

Results of Marriage duties

• Rise in number of paupers

• Fall in number of entries in registers

• Rise in number of peculiars, extra

parochial or non parochial churches.

• Unbeneficed clergy performing marriages

• Ministers in prisons engaged in unlicenced

matrimonial business

Places free of the Bishop of

London • *St James Dukes Place (1664 -1691 = 40,000

marriages) nb in 1686 the rector of St James Dukes Place was suspended for three years for marriages without banns or licence*

• *Holy Trinity Minories

• Tower of London

• The Mint

• Liberties of the Fleet Prison – Taverns, alehouses and brandy shops

– See also list of chapels in J S Burn Registrum Ecclesiae Parochialis The History of the Parish Registers of England 1842 and History of the Fleet Marriages

What else?

Parish Accounts

• Constables

• Church Wardens

• Overseers

• Vestry

• Tudor Poor Law & Settlement Act 1662

see“All embarqued in one bottom”. An

introduction to sources for soldiers, administrators, and civilians in civil war Britain and Ireland. Martin Bennet in the Genealogists Magazine. vol. 25 no. 8, Dec. 1996 (contains an overview of useful sources including constables accounts [as collectors and compilers of local tax lists], parish rating lists, accounts of the parish overseers and church wardens.)

Parish Records

Religious Upheavals

Quakers

Quaker registers at TNA in RG6 –

ONLINE on BMD Registers 1578-1841

Digests at Friends House and on film

at SoG

Compton’s Census 1676 • Ecclesiastical survey of

1676 – “ a telling of noses” counting conformists [inhabitants], nonconformists and papists (held in the William Salt and Bodlian Libraries and in local CROs) undertaken by Henry Compton Bishop of London for archbishop Gilbert Sheldon. Occasionally includes names of nonconformists but also lists clergy for all parishes

Nonconformity?

According to the Compton Census The Rector of Frittenden in Kent anatomised

nonconformity in his parish in 1676 as:-

Professed Presbyterians wholly refusing

society with the Church of England

Obstinate dissenters

Anabaptists

Quakers

Brownists

Newtralists between Prebysterians and Conformists

Conformists

Licentious or such as profess no religion

Infrequent resorters to their parish

The Curate of Ash reports

“Sectaries of all sects and particular persons that do follow them …

willfully absenting themselves from publike services and communion

of the church”

Church Courts

Sin, Sex & Probate • Probate/Marriage Licences

• Matrimonial Disputes

• Incest/Fornication/Adultery

• Scolding/Unseemly Behaviour

• Heresy/Witchcraft

• Clergy Discipline

• Licensed Midwives, Schoolmasters & Surgeons

Making & Breaking a Marriage

Church Courts

Invalid marriages

Marital Disputes

Separation of Bed and Board

Parliamentary Divorces

Civil Divorce 1858

Church Courts Matrimonial Test

Vicar of Tong’s penance for clandestine marriage

“Dishonoured my ministry by a

constant & habitual course &

practice of marrying all sorts of

people both of my own and other

parishes … Without banns or

licence” Consistory Court of

Canterbury

Negligent clergy in Sawley

“hath now absented himself

from amongst us this two

years and dwelleth some foure

myles distant and out of the

parish whereby wee are very

neglected” before Archbishop

of York Exchequer court

Morals

Personal relationships

in Nottinghamshire

•

Extramarital sexual relationships often came before the court, which was concerned both about Christian morality and the social problems of illegitimacy. Salacious details abound: Elizabeth Smyth of Lound, an alehouse-keeper, was commonly known as 'Few Clothes' and was reported in 1610 to have committed adultery with two men - one a wife beater and wizard - and to have had an illegitimate child by a third (AN/PB 296/1/3).

• Meanwhile, in Normanton-on-Trent in 1626, a Walter Garlick, who was separated from his wife in Wiltshire, was living 'lasciviously'. He boasted that he could have fourteen women at his pleasure! (AN/PB 326/10/17)

• Domestic violence and the arguments of neighbours could come before the church courts. Thus, in 1634 Robert Haslape of Kelham came home drunk and beat his wife in time of divine service (AN/PB 328/7/20), while Agnes Ridge of Winthorpe, rebuked by her mother-in-law in 1624 for receiving disorderly persons into her house, called her 'old rade' and threw stones at her (AN/PB 326/6/42).

Nothing but occular inspection could enforce a stronger belief of

criminal conversation in Seasalter

“They appear, and deny any criminous

conv. But say she is his hired servant

who lives with him as housekeeper”

Consistory Court of Canterbury

Incest and adultery on the Isle of Man

“with his wife’s sister’s daughter”

“To be committed a month in St

Germans Prison and before his release to

give bonds to … make one Sunday’s

penance at the church door of every

parish and at the market cross of every

town within this isle… bare legged and

bare headed covered over with a white

linen sheet”Consistory Court of Sodor &

Man

Defamation

The court of scolds

or

bawdy courts

In a very base and bawdy

manner “It being proved by Mary

Fry and Ewen Kissack

that Isabel Kissack

reflected on Alice Kissack

in a very base and bawdy

manner calling her the

wife of him that had the

stone privy member “

Consistory Court of

Sodor & Man

17th century insults

'I pray to god thou mayest lye above ground as blacke as a toade' '[he] lied in his throat' 'a very bould impudent and a clamourous woman' 'Thou art a naughtie fellow, thou diddest never anye good in this town' 'you are a swaggerer' 'dunce asse calfe blockhead and foole' 'villaine and Rascaldy knave' 'scurvie pawtrie knave' 'base rascally preist lowsye slave' 'filthy and scurvy Cockes combe'

Ecclesiastical Licences –

Midwives, Schoolmasters, Physicians

and Clergymen licensed by the church

Problems • Locating documents

• Records not easy to use

• Poorly kept

• Inconsistencies diocese to diocese

• Canon Law difficult to interpret

• Pre 1733 often in Latin

• Few powers of punishment

• Lesser courts declined as London grew

important

• Rarely indexed for names apart from wills and

MLS but worth look on www.A2A.org

Consistory of Canterbury(East Kent)

Depositions indexed by Duncan Harrington

York ecclesiastical courts indexed online

London Courts • PCC for other probate information- accounts etc(records at TNA)

• Consistory of London for matrimonial cases (records at LMA)

• Other courts in Doctors Commons

– Court of Arches (records at Lambeth Palace. Appeals in Province of Canterbury)

– High Court of Delegates (records at TNA . Appeals from PCC, PCY, Court of Chivalry, High Court of Admiralty, Courts of Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge Universities

– Commissary & Archdeaconry of London (records at Guildhall)

– Archdeaconries of Middlesex (records at LMA)

– Consistory & Archdeaconry of Rochester

– Archdeaconry of Surrey

– Consistory of Winchester

– Peculiars of Deaneries of the Arches, Croydon and Shoreham, Dean and Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral

– Faculty Office and Vicar General of the Archbishop of Canterbury

London Consistory Depositions

1700-1713 on findmypast

Other Probate Documents

Inventories, Accounts,

Tuition and Curation Bonds

• Can accompany wills up to mid 1700s

• Values the contents room by room • Example of Inventory 1686

on TNA Palaeography course

Quarter Sessions

Simon Horne, the reputed father of a bastard child begotten on the

body of Elizabeth Scarlett, to pay 18d. weekly and the mother 6d. weekly for keeping of the said child for 7 years.- It is ordered that Simon Home, being the reputed father of a bastard child begotten of the body of Elizabeth Scarlett, shall pay eighteen pence weekly towards the keeping of the said child and the said Elizabeth shall also pay sixpence weekly towards the keeping of the same child, both the said payments to continue for the space of seven years. And the said Simon Home is to secure the parish of Tanworth where the said child was born from the charge of the said child. And the several recognisances by them severally acknowledged are to continue in force for the performance of this order.

Sessions Records

• Thomas Clarke, late a trooper under lieutenant Hunt, to have 40s. paid to him by John Parsons, gentleman, one of the Treasurers etc.-Upon consideration had of the distressed estate of Thomas Clarke was a trooper under the command of lieutenant Hunt and who hath received divers wounds in the service of the Parliament, it is ordered that John Parsons, gentlemen, one of the Treasurers for the King's Bench and Marshalsey, shall upon sight hereof pay to the said Thomas Clarke the sum of 40s. for his present relief and at the next Sessions this court will faire order for the settling of a pension upon him towards his relief hereafter and the said Thomas Clarke is to subscribe the receipt of the same 40s. and leave this order with the said Mr. Chambers for his discharge herein.

• Edward Wisdoms, a foot soldier, John Greenhill, a trooper, William Mason, a foot soldier, to have 40s. a piece paid them by the Treasurers ete.--Upon consideration had of the distressed estate of Edward Wisdome who was a foot soldier under the command of major Hawford and who hath received divers wounds in the service of the Parliament, it is ordered that John Parsons, gentleman, one of the Treasurers etc., ut supra for twenty shillings and that Mr. Chambers, the other Treasurer, shah pay the other 20s.

Manorial Records

Court roll showing

Free tenants and jury

& electing

Manorial officials

The Court Baron – transfer of the use of land

The Court Leet – the police court

And that Juliann Guld widdowe hath

suffered her ditch adjoininge to her

backesyde to remayne unscoured to

the prejudice of the tenants therefore

shee is amerced xivd

Manorial wills – peculiar courts

17th Century Chancery Indexes on FMP Charles I Chancery Index

This unique resource, created by Peter Wilson Coldham makes available for the first time an index to all 82,000 Chancery Cases launched during the reign of Charles I (1625-49). Chancery records are a particularly important source of information for descendants of early migrants to North America. Proceedings in Chancery were instituted mainly, though not exclusively, by those with money and property. The aggrieved party (the Plaintiff) would have his lawyer draw up a Bill of Complaint setting out in stiff, formal language, and always at great length, the substance of his complaint. This document always begins with the plaintiff’s name, title or occupation, and place of residence, names the offending parties (the Defendants), and seeks the Court’s authority to require the Defendants to provide written Answers to a series of specific questions. So the next document which would appear would be the Answer(s), and the wheels of law would begin to grind. The Plaintiff might submit objections to the Answers, called a Replication, which would be followed by further Answers. The Defendants might enter a Demurrer to the Bill of Complaint, saying that the case was defective in law and required no Answer.

Bills of Complaint and Answers are often not filed together under the same reference, which explains, at least partly, why many of the cases have multiple references. TNA Reference If you wish to search the source documents yourself at TNA, Kew, they are held in Class C2, subclass Chas1. The references here give only the piece and folio numbers (eg H77/40), since the Class & subclass is always the same. The full references would be, for example, C2/Chas1/H77/40.

Sample C2 Chas 1 Abstract • Abstract of Chancery Case Documents

Provided by Helen Osborn Research Ltd on behalf of The Origins Network This is an abstract of original documents held in Class C2 at The National Archives, Kew, England Origins References Bannister v. Somerscales B110/27 B110/27 94384_4093101.rtf Date Abstract Made 7/7/06 Condition & Size of Document(s) 2 membranes parchment, A1 size and A2 size very good condition Document Type (bill of complaint, etc) Bill of complaint Joint and Several answers Short Extract of Names and Places together with any date mentioned in the document(s) 29 May 1628 Richard Bannister of Barnoldswicke in the Co. of York, gent. Richard Frankland of Pasehowse in the Co of York, gent, son and heir of Raphe Frankland, Margaret and Joan Frankland Thomas Somerscales of Gisborne, York, uncle to Margaret and Joan, brother to Bridget their mother John Bannister Opinion on Reproduction of Document These documents give a wealth of detail about the Bannister and Frankland families.

Chancery – Bernau Index

Commonwealth State Papers

& Parliamentary Committees

Records at TNA – not on State Papers Online

• SP 20 Committee for Sequestrations 1643-53*

• SP 23 Committee for Compounding with Delinquents 1643-60*

• SP22 Committee of Plundered Ministers

• SP 19 Committee for Advance of Money

Woodcut of a parliamentary committee, take from A perfect Dirunal of the Passages in parliament. 1643 (PRO, SP 9/245)

Victorian Calendars

Edward Farnham

Deposition signed by Edward Farnham Committee

for Compounding with Delinquents

SP 23/86 p 169

Published histories

Charges on the Estate

“the records of the

delinquent royalists

and the fortunes lost

in encumbered debt-

ridden estates seized

by Parliament”

Many local records published Robert Barlow of Urmston. Letter dated at Wigan, 22, May, 1650, signed by

Peter Holt, Robert Cunliffe, and George Pigot,

mentioning that they had received the information

enclosed touching the delinquent, Robert Barlow, of

Urmston, …

The information of Richard Starkey, of Urmston,

gentleman, taken at Wigan, the 22nd of May, 1650,

who informed and said that he had by relation from

James. Heys, of Urmston, and John Shawcrosse,

of Flixton, that Robert Barlowe, of Urmston,

gentleman, at such time as Prince Rupert with his

forces marched through that county joined in arms

with those forces and marched along with them to

the battle at York, and was there at the battle, and

continued a long time after in arms with the said

forces.

Heraldic Visitations 16th & 17th Centuries

• Ormerod’s History of Cheshire

drawn from Heraldic Visitation

Pedigrees

• Visitation records at College of

Arms, copies occasionally at BL

often published by the

Harleain Society – eg London

visitations 1568, 1593,1634,

1666 and 1687

London 1634 and others online

Marshall The Genealogist’s

Guide

(To 1903)

Whitmore A Genealogical Guide

(1903-1953)

Barrow The Genealogist’s

Guide

(1953-1977)

Who to Tax?

Nonconformist Recusants

• Recusant Rolls 1591-1691

• Protestation Returns 1641-2

Recusant rolls at TNA (E376 -379). Fines emposed for non attendance at church. Recorded names, rents, descriptions, date of seizure and payments

or arrears.

Protestation Returns

Parliamentary Archives

Census of Adult Males

Thomas Huss who comptemtuously refused it himselfe &

sayd openly in the Churchyard …The next time he came

to church he was forsworne, besydes his wayling in the

church and at service, spoke saying it was stinking ? or

relique of Popery. This man did openlye in the

Morning disrupte the whole Congregation in the middle

of Divine Service at the saying of the Lord’s Prayer

Protestation Returns

Exchequer Records TNA E179

• The exchequer was traditionally a cloth laid out over a table on which counters were placed to tally certain values of payments made. The cloth, later laid out in squares, resembled a chessboard for counting. Under Henry I the Treasurer called each Sheriff to give account of Royal income in their Shire. The Chancellor of the Exchequer questioned them concerning debts owed by private individuals.

• The Exchequer, as the department of State having charge of the collection and management of Royal Revenues, continued to collect monies until it was abolished in 1834. The Treasury, of course, continues today.

Taxing Times 17th Century • Free and Cheerful Gift 1625

• Ship Money 1630-40

• Aid for Distressed Protestants 1641

• Poll Taxes 1641-1697

• Free and Voluntary Present to Chas II 1661

• St Paul’s Cathedral Fund 1677/8 (Guildhall?)

• Hearth Tax 1662-1689

Aid for Distressed Protestants

in Ireland

• anti-Catholic propaganda to

encourage payment of

taxes

• 1641

• E 179 & SP 28

• Listed by Cliff Webb in

Genealogists Mag

• Gibson & Dell

Graduated poll tax for disbanding the

armies granted by Parliament, 1 1641-1660 (TNA E179) described in

Lists & Index Society Vols. 44, 54, 63, 75, 87. Laid down prescribed sums from every one over the age of sixteen and not in receipt of alms according to status in life. Lowest contribution six pence, the highest £100. Catholics paid double, widows a third. For printed returns see Texts & Calendars I & II (Mullins). Listed in Gibson & Dell.

2 This shows the assessment for Waddesdon “The Ladye Dormer being rated £20 being a recusant paid £40”. (TNA, E 179/244/4)

•

Hearth Tax TNA. E 179 & CROs • 1662- 1689.

• Collected twice yearly at Michelmas (29 September) and Lady Day (25 March)

• copies of the returns of payments were sent to the Exchequer (and are lodged at The National Archives in E179)

• and to local quarter sessions (which can be found in local County Record Offices.)

• levied on all houses above 20 shillings rent and whose occupiers paid poor and church rates.

• poor people in receipt of alms and those who inhabited houses worth less than twenty shillings a year, were exempt as were, at the beginning, hospitals, alms houses and industrial hearths.

• Note therefore that bakers and blacksmiths had to pay the tax. 2 shillings (24p) was payable on each hearth or stove.

• Tax was paid by the occupier of the house not the landlord and was assessed on the occupier’s ability to pay, but landlords with poor tenants had to pay their tax for them.

• very unpopular. It was thought to be intrusive as the inspectors came into your property which from our modern perspective must seem like a visit from VAT inspector.

• The Hearth Tax was inefficient. It never raised as much revenue as had been expected. Collection of the tax was eventually farmed out to private individuals which might seem as an early form of privatization and as these “tax farmers” took their cut, the revenues to the crown diminished.

• surviving returns are remarkably useful and there also many lists of those who claimed exemptions from the tax which are to be found at TNA.

• The British Record Society is publishing at least one earth tax return for each county and many have been published by local record societies.

TNA E 179 database (Faversham)

Essential Reading

• Tax records at The

National Archives,

Kew in E179

• Catalogue of taxes by

place online on E179

database on TNA

website