Would you like some memorial inscriptions from Suffolk, including all the churches in Ipswich? As well as East Bergholt, Bramford, etc etc?
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, The East Anglian ran an 81-part series covering inscriptions inside churches, and a separate series listed surnames from headstones in churchyards. In a couple of cases, there’s inscriptions from the churchyards too.
I’ve added links to the pages of The East Anglian where I have register transcriptions for those parishes – so links to all three parts recording East Bergholt’s memorial inscriptions inside the church are on the East Bergholt page. And where I don’t have parish register transcriptions, I’ve put the links together all on one handy page.
This looks good! The Suffolk Family History Society have released a new version of their Suffolk burials CD, with nearly 1,500,000 burials. It’s also available as a download. Ask Father Christmas to put this in your stocking! Get yours now (or direct Father Christmas) to the Suffolk FHS shop.
If you have the previous release (this is number three), I’ve spotted that it now takes parishes such as Clare and Stoke-by-Nayland back to the mid-1500s, while the previous release only went back as far as the mid-1600s. Full coverage of this release is available at the Suffolk FHS shop.
I first heard about the Essex Wills Beneficiaries Index (EWBI) in a newsletter from the Essex Society for Family History. It’s a remarkable index compiled over 15 years by Thora Broughton, who went to the Essex Record Office and combed through all the wills held there from 1675-1858, noting the beneficiaries – people named in the wills. Thanks to Thora’s efforts, you can look someone up by name and if they’re mentioned in a will held at the Essex Record Office, they will pop up in the index. They could be a daughter, a grandchild, an executor, someone who happens to live in a house owned by the testator – there’s all sorts of people who’ll come up. It’s been a really useful tool for knocking down brick walls in my family tree, so here’s some tips and information based on my own use of it.
The line of Mannocks who lived at Gifford’s Hall in Stoke-by-Nayland, the descendants of George Mannock’s son William, have been well-documented as they later became baronets. But what about the descendants of George’s son Thomas, who lived in Essex?
I’m transcribing records for Frinton at the moment. It once had a tiny population and an equally tiny church. In trying to find out more about life in a tiny village, I found an argument raging in the pages of the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal. It allows us to peek inside the church and visit it back in 1857.
It started off with a letter from Philo Eccles, published on 19 September 1857:
SIR – In the English Churchman of Thursday, the 10th inst., under the head of “Miscellaneous – Ecclesiastical,” I read a description of the parish church of Frinton, in Essex, which loudly claims the attention of the Ordinary. It appears that this church is only opened once on a Sunday, when there is a service in the evening – that the clerk places his hat and pocket handkerchief on the Communion Table, at which he sits in a chair, resting his elbows upon it as he would do in his own cottage – that the cover of the Table is coarse, dirty, and shabby, and the whole interior of the church is in fact in such a condition as to be disgraceful. It appears that the whole parish consists of two farm houses and a cottage;[1]Looking at Frinton on the 1851 census, there’s Frinton Hall and Frinton Wick, which are presumably the two farm houses – Frinton Hall was Richard Stone’s home at the time, and Wick … Continue reading but as the value is £162 per annum, surely something better as to the service of the church furniture ought to be insisted upon.
Perhaps a hint from the Cambridge Chronicle might secure this object.
I am, Sir,
Your very obedient Servant,
PHILO ECCLES.
At this time, as cities and towns grew, there were parishes catering to much larger populations where the livings were little more than that of Frinton. Over the years, there had been many rectors who enjoyed the income of the living, but rarely set foot in the parish, leaving the cure of souls to their poorly-paid curates.
But it was Frinton’s curate who responded. Over to you, Thomas James Bewsher.
Looking at Frinton on the 1851 census, there’s Frinton Hall and Frinton Wick, which are presumably the two farm houses – Frinton Hall was Richard Stone’s home at the time, and Wick was where Charles Theedam and his family lived. There’s a cottage on Kirby Road where the Snares lived – William Snare, aged 78, was Frinton’s oldest inhabitant on the 1851 census, and might be the person referred to later. Samuel Harvey, a farm labourer, lived at Parsonage House with his wife and family, and a property called Battery House is mentioned on the schedule but was uninhabited. That makes more properties than Philo Eccles counted. In all 30 people were in Frinton on the night of the 1851 census. In 1841 there had been 44, and apparently more properties as well although none are named.
I decided on a whim to make use of the Buckinghamshire records on Findmypast and research my Griffin ancestors who come from that county. I wasn’t sure I’d find all that much, and I’ve ended up very surprised! One of them sailed with Captain Cook, another founded a Colchester department store, and still another was a linen draper with an apprentice called Arthur Lasenby Liberty – yes, the man who founded another even more well-known shop!
There’s a whole slew of drapers, there’s Baptists and Independents, and there are some extraordinary stories to be told. I have started writing up my research so please do have a read.
No, this has nothing whatsoever to do with family history, other than the fact that my grandparents grew sweet peas and I wanted to grow some too.
My reason for putting this on here is because I don’t have a gardening blog or a personal blog, and I wanted to share my photos for anyone else learning how to grow sweet peas so you can get your head around pinching out – what to do and why. I tried looking for photos like this online for myself, showing what to look for and what the end result is, and couldn’t find them. So I’m hoping someone who was in my shoes will find them useful!
Pinching out is recommended to make the plant bushier and it’ll grow more flowers. Exactly when you do it is up for debate. The packet of seeds I got from Thompson & Morgan – Heirloom Mixed – said to pinch out after two pairs of leaves have opened, and the Sweet Pea Society website (yes, there is one!) says the same. I watched some videos about how to pinch out and that advice was different – after three pairs or even four pairs have opened, but I decided in the end to go with the advice on the seed packet and I’ve been pinching out once the plants have got two opened pairs of leaves.
In my previous live, I talked a lot about finding wills in Essex, but what about Suffolk? In this live, I'll share my tips for finding wills for people who lived – and died – in Suffolk.
There’s several handy links I mention, so here goes…
Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills (PCC)
Search on The National Archive’s catalogue, Discovery. It’s £3.50 to download wills unless at a UK university, or public library.
PCC wills are available to view on Ancestry via certain subscriptions. My tip is to search on Discovery first, then look for it on Ancestry if you have the sub that includes PCC. This is because (and I hate to say it, but it’s true…) that some of the personal names and placenames have not been transcribed terribly well on Ancestry (eg. I found someone’s residence of “Gray’s Inn” transcribed as “Crap’s Inn”. Hilarious, but wrong).
The style of handwriting used for PCC wills is very difficult – to start with. When I first encountered one I took one look at it and nearly gave up. But I persevered and learnt how to read the script, and now I find it really easy. You will too if you give it a try, I promise!
Suffolk Record Office – The Hold
All original wills held by SRO’s different sites (Bury St Edmund’s and Ipswich) can be searched for on The Hold. I’m not sure if registered copies appear on there or not. Many have been digitised so you can download those on demand online for £6 each. If the will hasn’t been digitised, you can request a copy and pay online, and the archivists will send you a copy. Note that registered copies of wills are often held on microfilm and are written in the same difficult handwriting as PCC wills!
Some of SRO wills are indexed in Findmypast’s set of printed wills indexes: England & Wales Published Wills & Probate Indexes, 1300-1858. This covers Ipswich wills 1370-1550 and Archdeaconry of Sudbury 1354-1700 and 1800-1858. Contact SRO to ask if they have a will for someone if the time period you’re looking for isn’t included in those books. There might be a charge for a search.
At some point, someone began putting together lists including extracts of wills by parish. So for instance if you search The Hold for “Washbrook wills” you get a record listing the names of people in Washbrook c1384-1600 who left wills, the date and the place the will is held. It also includes wills by people not in Washbrook but who left significant bequests to the parish, so they apparently had a link to the parish. The record is a list of names only, without links to the wills as some will be PCC wills or other and not necessarily held by SRO. These records also pop up if you do a search by name, and that name happens to be one of the ones listed.
Norfolk Record Office
Because Suffolk came under the ecclesiastical auspices of Norwich, some wills for Suffolk folk are in fact held in Norwich. NROCAT (NRO archive’s catalogue) does, I think, include registered copies of wills as well as originals.
Findmypast’s Published Wills & Probate Indexes includes Norwich Consistory Court Wills from 1370-1550.
London Metropolitan Archives
One last place to check: just as Suffolk came under the auspices of Norwich, Essex came under the ecclesiastical auspices of London, hence some wills for people from Essex are held at the London Metropolitan Archives. You may find that someone from Suffolk might have died in Essex (if for instance they were living with friends or family in Essex at the time of their death) and their will might not be at ERO but at the LMA. The wills are available to view as part of one of Ancestry’s subscriptions which includes many London parish registers, school registers, Poor Law records etc.
You can search the LMA’s catalogue at their website as well as order copies of documents. Some documents have been digitised and can viewed on their site, but I’m not sure if this includes wills. Have a plunge and find out!
