Making 17th C Links

I'm just about to finally start making sense of my latest discoveries from the SRO but a word on my main achievement...

I'm a little bit dubious as yet, but hopeful. My doubt comes from the fact that Young is a very common surname, something I tend to forget, as my Young family are the only ones with that name born in Bridgwater prior to about 1850, so I'm used to being able to claim them as my own.

What has tantalised me for a while is the fact that I have traced my Young family back to a Thomas Young, son of Robert Young. Now Robert would have been born around 1743. What do I find in the 1740s but a Thomas and Anstice Young having children, including a Roger, born 1743. No sign of a Robert - or of Roger later in life.

This time I had a bright idea and used the Poor Rates. I'd noticed Thomas and his father Robert listed there and decided to take it back. After all, it might lead me to discover Robert's father (or what was very likely to be him.)

So I set to work and found, sooner than I expected, Robert and Thomas Young paying rates for the same building from 1775 backwards. I then checked the parish registers for Bridgwater, with particular note of burials. Roger Young is the only one of Thomas and Anstice's children not buried and Thomas was born in 1717, making him the right sort of age to be Robert's otherwise unexpectedly long-lived father.

Yes, all a little shaky still, but it's looking likelier. Just have to see if there's anything else I can do to prove (or disprove) this theory. (The bishop's transcripts don't exist for the 1740s, so no use checking that to see if Roger might have been corrected to Robert).

But my suspicion suddenly looks a whole lot more realistic.

Somerset Curiosities

An interesting trip to the Record Office...

Just one or two oddities I found in the parish records:

I'm a little puzzled over 'Collick Puffin' buried 7th Jul 1704 in Bridgwater St Mary's. The writing was readable and this does seem to be what it says. But it can't be, can it?

And the death of John Tailor, buried on 2nd Dec 1716 with his two children must have been the talk of the town for some time, as the three of them were "blown up with gun powder."

And I've now made my first proper venture into 17th Century parish registers and so far, they've proved to be a lot more legible than most 18th C efforts. I had been wondering if it would be worth pursuing any further if I had to stare at yet more and more faded microfiche copies of terrible handwriting, but it seems I won't have to give up in order to save my eyesight and sanity yet.

Off to Somerset

I'm heading back home, so my posts may get all irregular again. ('Home' will forever be Somerset no matter how long I've lived elsewhere). I shall get to see my family, best friend - oh, and have some visits planned to the Somerset Record Office...

Yes, more info that I might one day transcribe & let people see. (Oh, I promise to improve honestly).