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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Keith Sherwood on Friday 08 May 09 15:01 BST (UK)
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Hi, Everyone,
Have recently been trying to trace back the CROW family of London , but who appear to originate earlier from the Lincoln area. Running through some of the male members is the forename DOCKERY, as in Roland Dockery CROW, b.1891, and his grandfather George Dockery CROW, b. 1830.
It appears that George Dockery CROW's mother was a Susannah KNOWLES, baptised 04-01-1801 at St Mary Le Wigford Lincoln, parents Peregrine KNOWLES and Mary (nee JACKSON).
What is slightly bizarre is that at least from 1808 onwards Peregrine begins to call himself Peregrine Knowles DOCKERY and with Mary he produces at least 3 other daughters up to 1812. He dies in 1825, and his widow Mary lives to the ripe old age of 94, calling herself Mary DOCKERY in the Censuses where she subsequently appears.
Now, I happened to look on the DOCWRA family website on the internet, which boasts some pretty impressive early ancestors, and was surprised to see those three 1808-1812 baptisms listed there, with the parents' names given as Peregrine Knowles DOCKERA and Mary JACKSON.
Would this mean that the curiously-named Peregrine was definitely a member of the DOCWRA clan, or has someone simply added him to the DOCWRA melting pot?
This DOCKERY name that flits in and out of the CROW family is particularly strange, in that Peregrine was simply referring to himself as Peregrine KNOWLES, baptised with that name 15-04-1773 at St Mark's Lincoln. So where does DOCKERY suddenly magically materialise from, and what have the DOCWRA family got to do with it?
I'm puzzled, I expect any unsuspecting Rootschatter who reads this must be totally confused, too...
Very best wishes,
keith
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Hi Keith, I think that answer very much depends upon who is collating the names! That said, the majority of one name studies I have come across are a collection of all examples of that one name, perhaps gathered after trawling through census returns.
Not sure that helps you work out whether your Peregrine fits in anywhere, sorry!
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Spidermonkey,
Thanks very much for those comments...I've tried e-mailing an address on that DOCWRA website, but as the last update seemed to suggest 2004, I'm not too hopeful of eliciting a response,
keith
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Hi Keith,
Sorry, can't help with your Peregrine but most one-name studies are just a collection of people with almost the same surname somewhere in history. In theory, they have a common ancestor but I doubt it has ever been proven.
A couple of my early lot were the Docwra family members and I've found that all their records (on the website you mention), as great and detailed as they are, don't all inter-connect to create one big happy family. Maybe they did if you go back far enough to people like Adam (Docwra) and Eve (Docwra) ;D ;D
Your Dockery name is thought to be just another version of Docwra but of course may have no connection whatsoever.
The name may even have been associated with men working on the Docks at one time.
Is it possible that your Peregrine actually changed his name in order to inherit an entailed estate - or on the other side of the coin - did he find out that his parents weren't actually married so used the Dockery name to honour one of his mother's parents (assuming that's where the name came from :-\ ) ?
Did he change his name at the time of a grandparent's death? Did a Dockery grandfather die and leave him something so he added the extra surname?
Sorry - all questions and no answers ::)
Di
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My own Edlin one name study which I have not published on a website consists of six major families which so far are not connected, although I anticipate that this could be reduced to three.
I also have about thirty small family groups, each of about three generations which are unconnected and a file of a few hundred unconnected people.
Incidently I have not trawled the census, bmd or any of the other major sources to collect these names although I do use these sources to try to establish connections.
David
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Hi Keith,
many family names are unlikely to be even remotely connected.
Take any name associated with a occupation back in the dim and distant .
Miller, Baker ,Fuller,Tanner ,Fletcher were all village professions and could well have started out as John the miller to distinguish him from John the Archer, in one ville, only in the next hamlet , John the Archers cousin was known as Peter , Michels'son.
In Latter years when a particular name had been used for a couple of generations ,and had sometimes altered its spelling then yes ,maybe it is possible to find a mutual ancestor.
With those provisos, then One Name Studies are valid to perhaps the 13th Century and further back if a name is connected to well documented family
Spring
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Hi again, Lady Di,
There need to be lots of questions posed to solve this particular puzzle, so I appreciate you firing away with them! I just wonder too who saw fit to add those three baptisms to the DOCWRA website collection...
And thanks very much for those interesting and relevant comments on one-name sites, Springbok and David,
regards, keith
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I have included a link to a one name study which seems to be a very good example of a published product.
In another instance 'one name study listings' have put me onto a collector of names for my family name, in such a case I need contact the custodian of this study to make enquiries as required. It all helps in the end.
John
http://www.piggin.org/index.htm
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My study of LANKSHEAR often spelt LANKSHIRE and similar and I have included LANKESHEER is not listed at
http://www.one-name.org/cgi-bin/index.cgi?find=D but DOCWRA and similar variations is.
Why not contact those people.
I try to list all uses of LANKSHEAR etc that I find including use as a middle name - which includes CLARE similar to the quoted Piggin site.
There are not many LANKSHEAR and in essence we all link back to a marriage in 1713 but a few people I have not connected as yet but perhaps one day.
LANKSHEAR appears to be a spelling from a Oxfordshire dialect way of pronouncing Lancashire as LANKESHEER is from Somerset.
Now surnames do not have such a narrow origin - people do one name studies but could not link all the people as their common ancestor is more anthropology than genealogy.
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Hi
I can't answer the specific Docwra question but thought that people might like to know that there is an extremely good and very detailed article on one name studies and the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS) in this month's Family History Monthly.
From some of the replies I have read here it would seem that many people do not understand at all what an ONS is, or its reasons for being.
No, not all people with the same surname are connected, but many groupings are linked with other groupings.
Yours
Vicwinann
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Hi again,
All very interesting aspects of this theme re One-Name studies and websites.
A bit irritating of me then, perhaps, to pick up on the specifics of the puzzle over this KNOWLES/DOCKERY adoption...
However, I've been looking again at the IGI entries, and Peregrine KNOWLES seems to become Peregrine Knowles DOCKERAY at the baptism of daughter Mary Ann as early as 1803.
So, recapitulating, Peregrine KNOWLES and Mary JACKSON marry on 17th Nov 1800 in Lincoln, and have a daughter Susannah KNOWLES bapt: 04-10-1801. Thereafter, from 1803 thru to 1812, they have 4 more daughters (one of whom dies within months), all with the DOCKERAY surname after their father, reinvented as Peregrine Knowles DOCKERAY.
The other odd thing is that the mother Mary DOCKERY/AY was 94 when she died in 1859, giving her a birth year of about 1764/5. If she was indeed the mother of the (second) Sarah DOCKERAY bapt. 1812, she would have been 48 years old then. Not impossible, I suppose...
Still scratching my head...
keith
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So your question wasn't really "Are all the name..........." but was "is Mary Jackson who could be born 1765 the mother of Sarah Dockeray c1812." Is that your real question?
I did suggest looking at the GOONS site as there are several surname connections for DOCWRA DOCKERY etc etc.
One of the GOONS may be a current active researcher
Mary Dockery is 86 in 1851 census (have not found 1841) - so 94 in 1859 sounds correct - Mary Crow is with her in 1851 so I wondered if she was informant at death - did she recall what Mary said in 1851 and was Mary right?
Is she the same Mary Dockery? If she is Peregrine's wife could she be a second wife? Presumably he is 1773 baptism on IGI. Looked for a Mary Jackson born around 1765 in Lincs - oh dear so many.
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Ron,
Yes, I think I deserve your mild chastisement! But thanks for having a look around for me. Mary DOCKERY does indeed appear in the 1841 Census in Ballingdon, Sudbury, Essex - I've started a thread on the Suffolk boards to clarify exactly where that was. She's had her age rounded down to 70, and is living with her (presumably) daughter Susannah CROW's family.
And yes, there is a plague of Mary Jackson's born at about the right time, just to confuse matters.
I imagine I'm going to have to pay a visit to Lincoln to look in the St Swithin PR's, amongst several others,
Regards, keith
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Hi Keith,
I have a very similar thing with dual use of surnames see
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,169740.0.html.
I was lucky in that THJ read my query and had a Will that appears to contain the answer.
I have still not been able to find a baptism of my Barnabas Stevens/Brighty or the marriage of his mother, Alice surname unknown, who married ? Stevens.
Regards
Selina
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Hmm, what an extraordinary name Peregrine Knowles was!
Now I know that the familysearch data is incomplete, but entering his name, all years, England, only brings up his birth/christening and marriage records!! A familysearchwhack of sorts.... ;D
So he probably wasn't hiding when he added Docker(a)y to his name.
I wondered whether any of his siblings had also adopted the Docker(a)y name. However, the only other Knowles born in St Marks, Lincoln was Jane b 1733 ??? No Dockerys christened in the parish.
Peregrine's parents were William & Mary. There were no Williams born 1750-1790 to a W&M couple in Lincolnshire; the only Mary to a W&M couple 1750-1790 was ch 18 Jan 1787 in Fiskerton, Lincolnshire (this Batch C028272 also has to a W&M - Hannah 1788, Elizabeth 1789, George 1794, William 1797; no Docker(a)ys christened in the parish).
I cannot see a will for Peregrine on TNA site.
Docker(a)ys and variants 1740-1820 seem to be associated with Cambridgeshire, Cumberland, Lancs, Herts, Yorks.
Keith, do you know Peregrine's occupation? Or that of his children?
As there is an east coast bias for the Dockery name, could Peregrine have had an association with continental Decroy/Decrois businesses? Lace making, cloth manufacture, for example?
Kind regards
Gaie
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Ah now I see her and the CROWs in 1841 which sort of says she is the same Mary and 70 rounded down still coming up 1765 I suppose . And the young Mary 10 months who is with her also in 1851. Only hope to identify which Mary Jackson is a Will for her dad or mum that says my daughter who married Peregrine.....
And I should have said if Mary married at age 35 it could be a second marriage
And I have been told by experts that fertility past age 40 was rare - back in the old days ie before 1900
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Keith, Around five years ago Doncaster FHS open day was addressed by David Hey the Professor (now emeritus) of History at Sheffield University; during his lecture he mentioned that a family name with a small number of entries on the deaths index between 1838 and 1842 likely originated from a common root. As I was am am researching an uncommon surname LUFFMAN, I asked him what the number of entries was, and got the reply 30. I then checked my data base and established that there were 17 Luffman deaths during the period. I have since assumed that all Luffmans originate from a single root, and find that this has helped my research, though with illegitimacies etc. it is still a minefield combined with a series of Berlin walls!
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Selina, Gaie, Ron and Redroger,
You've all been most diligent in your comments and research, and thanks so much for spending time on this puzzle. Such a pity that there seem to be no relevant wills that might unlock a clue or two.
I know from my experience of Cambs County Record Office that they have a great many wills pre-1858 that simply do not show up on the TNA site, tucked away on microfilm in obscure places. Meaning that I probably need to travel to Lincoln and visit their own County Record Office to find useful wills and testaments.
Peregrine is SUCH a strange, uncommon name, you'd think any individuals with that name would stick out like a sore thumb; but they're remarkable for their rarity. I have found an 1855 proved will for a Benjamin CROW on TNA who could possibly be Peregrine and Mary KNOWLES DOCKERY's son in law (marrying their daughter Susannah). He could have remarried a Mary in 1854 in the Westminster area after his wife Susannah died, abandonning his young family and going into service there as a butler.
But his will doesn't give any magical clues, I'm afraid. Thanks so much your input, anyway,
keith
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HI Keith
My understanding is that TNA only has wills that were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, which would explain why they don't have wills held at Cambridge, which were proved elsewhere
David
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From memory an index to the wills proved in Cambridge & Ely makes up a couple of volumes published by the British Record Society. I can't remember which volume numbers they were, but it should be easy to find out then get them on inter-library loan (which is what I did a few years ago).
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Keith, Though I now live in Bournemouth and therefore cannot put a date or time on my next visit, I shall have to visit Lincoln archives in the not too distant future. If you would like to send me a p.m. of your requirements I will do my best to meet it when I next visit Lincoln.
Roger
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Hi again, David,
You're quite right about the TNA wills online, and I'd actually forgotten the distinction...I also ought to know exactly which ones they have at the CCRO, but I often discover a volume of wills there that I hadn't realised existed before.
Roger, that's a very kind offer you're making, but I've also been PM-ed (yesterday!) by a fellow Rootschatter who says they only live around the corner from the Lincs Record Office and will pop in there to have a bit of a look for me, possibly by the end of the month.
So I'm a lucky boy!
keith
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OK Keith, PM me if the offer doesn't work out.
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Hi again, Everyone,
Well I''m not sure whether the situation is any clearer - more questions than ever being posed now - but thanks to the extremely generous Rootschatter who visited Lincoln Record Office yesterday, I now have the transcript of John DOCKERY's will of 1798. He was a butcher in Lincoln and left everything to his housekeeper, a Mary KNOWLES. He refers to his two children as Peregrine DOCKERY (with the name KNOWLES later inserted) and also Susannah DOCKERY.
So, Peregrine and Susannah were either half brother and sister, or perhaps full brother and sister; according to the IGI Peregrine's parents were a William and Mary KNOWLES. Could this Mary have been widowed and had become John DOCKERY's housekeeper, and then his partner, bringing Peregine along to grow up with John D? Was she the mother of Susannah, or was Susannah the child of John with a previous wife who had subsequently died?
John DOCKERY refers to his two children as his "natural" children, which rather confuses the issue. Whatever the truth, there must have been plenty of gossip in late 18thC Lincoln as the meat cleaver rose and fell in the butcher's shop...
Keith
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Hi Keith
You are SO lucky! Wills like that are a real gift - I just wish enough of my relatives were wealthy enough to leave wills and clarify the murky waters they left behind...
Having said that, the term 'natural' was the standard one used at that period (in polite circles I think) to denote a child born out of wedlock, so your John DOCKERY seems to be clearly admitting that Peregrine and Susannah were both his, regardless of Mary KNOWLES marital status at the time. One of my ancestors had quite an extensive family with a partner she was living with, although not married to, and all the children were baptised under the names of herself and her husband. Whether this was for decency's sake, or that the vicar assumed the children were the husband's, I don't know!
Angela
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An interesting Will indeed.
are you saying Susannah who marries Ben Crow is John's daughter? Or are there two Susannah which seems more likely. Or was Peregrine hiding the old mans problem? But then why would John reveal all in the Will. Much easier to leave it to his granddaughter.
Natural child to me means "I accept this child as my own biological offspring". This covers in wedlock and out of wedlock. After all if there was rumour that a child born to his wife was not his then "natural" allows him to say it is. Or he accepts that the housekeeper's child is his.
So Peregrine may have been baptised as son of William KNOWLES but now John DOCKERY says otherwise. Either way Peregrine gets the money and changes his name - who wouldn't
Did I miss something on Susannah I'd need to see all the dates again - is it now that she is Peregrine's mother's daughter and not Peregrine's
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On natural children; In southwest England during the 18th century some vicars would register the surname of the believed father and then score through the name leaving it legible to show that they knew or believed who the father was, the entry would then continue base (son or daughter) of ---. Does anyone know of this happening elsewhere?
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On natural children; In southwest England during the 18th century some vicars would register the surname of the believed father and then score through the name leaving it legible to show that they knew or believed who the father was, the entry would then continue base (son or daughter) of ---. Does anyone know of this happening elsewhere?
I have one like that - the boy was about 9 months old and his parents had been married a couple of months in this case.
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I sent this list of dates to Keith earlier today - perhaps it helps to explain things. Some baptisms are in BIVRI but not IGI
1768 May 16 St Botolph's, William KNOWLES married Mary ANDERSON
1773 April 15 St Mark's, Peregrine KNOWLES, son of William and Mary
1774 April 13 St Mary le Wigford, John KNOWLES, son of Mary
1775 June 9 St Mary le Wigford, Susanna KNOWLES, dau of Mary
1776 August 22 St Mary le Wigford, William KNOWLES, son of Mary
1778 Nov 7 St Mary le Wigford, Susanna KNOWLES, dau of Mary
1798 presumed death of John DOCKERY
1800 Nov 17 St Mary le Wigford, Peregrine KNOWLES married Mary JACKSON
1801 Oct 4 St Mary le Wigford, Susannah KNOWLES bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1803 Aug 21 St Swithin, Mary Ann DOCKERAY bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1805/6 likely birth of John DOCKERY (son had middle name of Peregrine)
1808 Nov St Swithin, Martha DOCKERAY bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1811 Aug 19 St Swithin, Sarah DOCKERAY bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1812 Dec 17 St Swithin, Sarah DOCKERAY bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1816 July 2 St Swithin, Elizabeth DOCKERAY bap dau of Peregrine and Mary
1825 March 6 St Mary le Wigford, burial of Mary Ann DOCKERY (21)
1825 Oct 10 St Mary le Wigford, burial of Peregrine Knowles DOCKERY (53)
1832 Sept 9 St Michael on the Mount, John DOCKERY to Elizabeth MARSH
1836 June 19 St Swithin, Wm TATE (wid) to Martha DOCKERY (1841 census shows Martha aged 30, so that's her)
1845 Nov 2 St Mary le Wigford, Richard GLENN to Elizabeth DOCKERY
1858 Feb 1 Burial of John DOCKERY (52)
1859 Jan 12 Burial of Mary DOCKERY (94) - perhaps her extreme age is doubtful in view of 1816 birth of Elizabeth?
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Ah the baptism list presumably means the Susan in the Will is the one of 1778 - assuming the 1775 is deceased. So from 1774 Mary had other children not mentioned in 1798 Will - are they deceased? Or did John just have his favourites.
So that just leaves the Mary Jackson birth date mystery - did she just misunderstand her birth date? And it was really in 1770/80s.
The crossing out of father's name in example would appear to be a correction after the event. Did the curate find out he had been misled and change it back
I note BMD has Births Dec 1852 Sherrard Robert Wigton 10b 379
but I could not find the marriage.
Regarding the practice of crossing out names - for a child born out of wedlock the mother might well want to identify a father as well as the parish wanting to also for financial reasons. So rather than it being a name inserted and then immediately crossed out I would think it likely that these were an after the event crossing out when the man found out and saying it was not me - I am not paying.
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Regarding the practice of crossing out names - for a child born out of wedlock the mother might well want to identify a father as well as the parish wanting to also for financial reasons. So rather than it being a name inserted and then immediately crossed out I would think it likely that these were an after the event crossing out when the man found out and saying it was not me - I am not paying.
The sequence of events-
25 Nov 1852 birth of Robert SHERRARD, illeg son of Jane
15 June 1853 marriage of Jonathan DENWOOD to Jane SHERRARD (at Gretna Green, Scotland)
15 Aug 1853 baptism of Robert DENWOOD SHERRARD
Jonathan DENWOOD's 2nd marriage was also at Gretna (Scotland)
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Ah Gretna no wonder I did not see on BMD.
My comment as quoted was in relation to an idea that fathers names were put in registers and then crossed out just to establish a link to the father. I don't think the cases mentioned involved the couple eventually marrying. Just my thoughts on the practice - I do not have a knowledge any "rules" that might have existed.
In Robert's case which is different I think there is a curate fixing the register to what he thinks is the legal position. Undoubtedly Jonathan was making a statement about the child Robert being his ..... Did Robert use the name Denwood as his own
The curate was really being difficult - even recently I have known baptisms of the children and the minister just asked that they take place the day after the wedding.
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Sorry, everyone, for some reason I've not been getting e-mail notification about this thread and hadn't realised that the baton had been picked up again...
I hope that Geoff's excellent list of important details helps to clarify things a bit more, and now I can to begin to imagine what the sequence of events in this exciting tale might have been.
After that 1768 marriage between William KNOWLES and Mary HARRISON I notice that there is a 5-year gap before the birth of (their) first child, Peregrine. Perhaps the unfortunate William was incapable of fathering children, which is when John DOCKERY appeared on the scene. In the registers, the first 1773 baptism gives both William and Mary as parents, but thereafter only Mary is given as the mother in the subsequent baptisms of his siblings.
I wonder too who was responsible for giving Peregrine his most unusual forename - it can mean "foreigner", and I suspect that William might have had something to do with that. And I wonder too if Peregrine always knew who his real father was, or whether he didn't realise until he read the contents of John DOCKERY's 1798 will.
Certainly when he marries Mary JACKSON in 1800 he is still calling himself KNOWLES, and his first child Susanna is baptised as a KNOWLES in 1801. Afterwards, of course, from 1803 all her siblings came with the DOCKERAY surname.
I wonder too when it was that Mary KNOWLES actually moved in with John DOCKERY as his "housekeeper". And the Lincolnshire sausages certainly must have had extra spice in them with the gossip that must have been rife in a town of 7,000 inhabitants (according to Geoff E's extensive knowledge of the area) at that time!
Very best wishes,
keith
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That's potentially very bad news for me, as I thought I had pinned my ancestry down more or less to my 3 Xgreat grandparents, and the surname deleted.Now looking for the parents of John Luffman b1776, Somerset or possibly Dorset who joined the Somerset Fencible militia in Bath May 1794 as a trumpeter.Any ideas please?