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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: grundy51 on Tuesday 17 January 12 15:19 GMT (UK)
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My 4th great grandfather is Matthew Needham who married Elizabeth Worrall in 1768 in Sheffield; documented in parish records. Matthew and Elizabeth had 5 children whose births are all registered in the parish records in Sheffield. One of these children is Joseph (my 3rd great grandfather) and from him I've been able to trace my Needham family tree through to the present.
My problem is where were Matthew and Elizabeth born. I've searched the parish records of Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster and the surrounding parishes for a baptism record but drawn a blank. Where do I go from here? They have clearly moved to Sheffield but from where? Can someone suggest a process for tracking relatives who have moved into an industrial city in the 18th century.
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I can't say there's a single method for finding where relatives came from I'm afraid, it depends very much on the particular case. A few random thoughts though....
You say you have the marriage from the PR. If this is just from an index or transcript, then you should be sure to check the original as one or both of their residences may be given.
Do you have their burials from the PR? If they survived to 1812 or later, then their age should be given, which will make things easier.
Did Matthew leave a will. It may mention distant relatives, or he may have held property back where he originated.
What was Matthew's occupation? Is he likely to appear in the records of any guild etc. Was he apprenticed?
Is there a reason why you've only checked the PRs of large places and only to the north of Sheffield? I don't have any experience to the north of Sheffield, but I have quite a lot to the south west (in Derbyshire), and can say that a lot of people moved to Sheffield from there. Needham is also a fairly common name in North Derbyshire (although of course it may be elsewhere too).
Eventually you may have to resort to checking PRs and/or Needham wills in an ever widening circle around Sheffield. You also have to consider the chance that they were born in Sheffield, but that their baptisms weren't recorded, or that they were baptised in a church whose PR you haven't checked yet, or that is no longer extant.
Cheers ... and good luck!
Mark
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Mark
Thanks for the help.
I've looked at the original MC and it states that both Matthew and Elizabeth are from the local parish - no further forward :( .
Matthew I believe died in 1787 and Elizabeth in 1807. There ages weren't given :(.
I can't find a will for Matthew :(.
Matthew was a scissorsmith; I don't believe there was a guild for such an occupation :(.
I looked at Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster because census data says that's where the greatest density of Needham's are. My aim was to expand the search to Derbyshire - there is a cluster of Needham's around Chelmorton but there are no Matthew's.
My next thoughts were to go back and recheck that I've captured all the church/parish records in and around Sheffield, then to go to Derbyshire and finally to the dreaded red rose county.
Thanks for the advice and help.
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By limitation on Matthew's Bapts and the dates fit pefectly to marry 1768
ELIZABETH WORRAL
Christening: 29 NOV 1747 St Margaret, Leicester, Leicester, England
LDS give no parents
MATTHEW NEEDHAM
Christening: 22 AUG 1746 Queniborough, Leicester, England
Father: JOSEPH NEEDHAM Family
Mother: MARY
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Thanks Dobfarm
I had found the same Matthew Needham but couldn't explain why some one would move from Leicester to Sheffield. You have found Elizabeth Worrall from the same area which I must say on the face of it is a pretty good fit. The problem I have is why move to Sheffield and marry there and not in Leicester? Any thoughts?
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Hi
For a start its on the a main route north by town/city to town/city. Sheffield was the Iron town of the lower North, family connection, Liz went into working in servant domestic service in Sheffield and Matthew followed her (Romantic love) and many more reasons-better pay in the new big steel industry centred on Sheffield from small family steel businesses scattered about the country. Who knows but probable!
I do grave yard transcripts and you would be surprised how people moved around. Like Joe Blogg of this town late of Doncaster, a Wife who died and found her husband moved to Liverpool from Yorkshire and remarried
This MI photo is a vital record as the stone will soon be damaged info gone.
This Hanson gravestone MI (At the bottom nearly eroded away) the widowed wife ended up buried in Middlesex near London from Yorkshire and without this MI would never be accepted as her death
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Few bits i found
Willaim Needham
http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/2087-gales-and-martin-directory/
http://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/index.php?/topic/6631-robinsons-directory-of-sheffield-1797/
Plant's Yard Plants
times of James Plant's 1768 apprenticeship to a scissorsmith in Coalpit Lane .... (
c) Leicestershire Plants ..... near Little Sheffield — this deed names John Plant's
wife as Dorothy Needham in agreement with .... The three 18th century Sheffield
Directories (1774, 1787, and 1797) provide ..... subsequent adoption of this trade.
http://www.plant-fhg.org.uk/articles/plshef1e1.pdf
Barnsley
1741George Married Mary Needham ... Bradwell, husbandman; to (1) Swift John
jr., Scissorsmith, 7, 1783,; (2) Hinchcliffe Joseph, scissorsmith, m. , 3-9, 1786. ...
justforethought
http://justforethought.tripod.com/Barnsley/index.blog
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SON Born NORTON
MATTHEW NEEDHAM
Christening: 06 NOV 1774 Cathedral Saint Peter, Sheffield, Yorkshire, England
Father: MATTHEW NEEDHAM
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~spire/Yesterday/SettlementExaminationsS.htm
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Matthew Needham 55 born Norton, parents legal Settlement Sheffield Yorkshire Apprenticed to Thomas Birks Highfield, Hired to George Grayson Hooly Bridge P Bradfield YKS. Married Elizabeth Lee 35 years since, she now dead .Married Mary Fowler,has child aged 15 1828
MATTHEW NEEDAM
Marriages:
Spouse: ELIZABETH LEE Family
Marriage: 08 JUN 1797 Bradfield, Yorkshire, England
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http://www.bradfieldarchives.co.uk/?q=&parent=&h=&y=1&keywords=needham&Search=Search
Joseph Needham
To Overseer of Bradfield 2nd day Jan 19th year of reign of king George 11
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dobfarm
Thanks again for all your help. The Matthew Needham born on the 6 Nov 1774 is the son of the Matthew Needham I'm trying to trace. In thee 18th Century there were 145 Needhams christened in Sheffield. Only one was Matthew - the one you found and only one father was called Matthew - the one I'm trying too trace. Next week I aim to go to Sheffield Archives to see if there is a settlement certificate for Matthew Needham from Queniborough to Sheffield. If there is then I'm happy that I've tracked down where Matthew Needham originated from.
I've looked on IGI and can find the birth of Matthew Needham but they do not have a record of his marriage or death in Leicestershire, which would indicate that he moved away from Queniborough. He did have a brother John and a John Needham was a witness at Matthew Needham's wedding. So quite a lot fits
Thanks again for all you help
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Hi,
In answer to your original query
If Matthew Junior lived in Norton, North Derbyshire just below Sheffield, just in the boundary of Derbyshire. To the East towards South Rotherham in the countryside villages is the Nottinghamshire boundary (Roughly North/East of!! where the North bound M1 & M 18 motorways split West of Worksop. Sheffield or Rotherham archives may have overlap Parish's with these counties but Matlock and Nottingham archives Repositories, or Worksop and Chesterfield Libraries may have Film/fiche of PR's or transcriptions, Also FHS in above places aforesaid
See old county boundary maps
Enjoy your trip to Sheffield :)
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At Sheffield Archives 18th/19 century
Settlement and Removal Records (certificates, examinations, removal orders, etc.)
Attercliffe, 1712 - 1792 (Sheffield Archives: CA26/1)
Bolton Upon Dearne, 1701 - 1862 (Sheffield Archives: PR9/93-95)
Bradfield (and Westnall and Waldershelf),1700 - 1761, 1781 - 1793 (Sheffield Archives: Wil. D/457)
Bradfield, transcripts and index [1705 - 1850] (Sheffield Archives: MD7277)
Chesterfield (Derbyshire), 1746 - 1809 (Sheffield Archives: MD6525/5/1-4, 7) © Sheffield City Council, 2011
Page 27 of 44
Dodworth and Silkstone (Barnsley), 1703 - 1784 (Sheffield Archives: MD3171/5)
Dore, c. 1720 - 1839 (Sheffield Archives: JC/1258)
Ecclesfield, 1712 - 1715 and 1754 - 1766 (Sheffield Archives: PR54/148/4 and PR54/148/2)
Foolow (Derbyshire),1710 - 1830 (Sheffield Archives: Bag C/566)
Harthill, c. 1701 - 1737 and 1700 - 1849 (Sheffield Archives: PR47/55 and PR47/92-93)
Hooton Roberts, 1767 - 1819 (Sheffield Archives: PR26/22)
Ludlow (Shropshire), 1721/1722 (Sheffield Archives: MD6525/5/8)
Sheffield, 1717 - 1787 (Sheffield Archives: TC/433)
Sheffield, orders and disputes relating to settlement, [18th cent?] (Sheffield Archives: TC/367/37-46)
Silkstone (see Dodworth)
Skelbrooke, (Doncaster), 1690 (Sheffield Archives: MD3609)
Staveley (Chesterfield, Derbyshire), 1720 - 1830 (Sheffield Archives: JC/1122)
Thorpe Salvin, 1659 - 1839 (Sheffield Archives: MD1237/1-156)
Todwick, 1704 - 1820 (Sheffield Archives: PR1/16)
Westnall and Waldershelf (Bradfield), 1700 - 1761, 1781 - 1793 (Sheffield Archives: Wil. D/457)
Whiston, 1701 - 1829 and 1773 - 1843 (Sheffield Archives: PR37/46 and PR37/54)
Whiston, 1701 - 1739 (Sheffield Archives: MD6625)
Whiston, transcripts [1701 - 1739] (Sheffield Archives: PR37/56)
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I am researching the Needham family from Barnsley, who came from Sheffield to start an iron foundry there. My ancestor is a John Needham, b1820, who lived in Queen St, and married a Harriet Twibey at Sheffield Parish Church on Feb 2nd 1841. Their witnesses were George Needham (molder) b1798 who was John's father and a Matthew Needham (from Sheffield Indexers website). I am wondering if Matthew was John's brother and the family originally came from Derbyshire and are linked to the Needham families that you have been researching?
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rakpat
Well you've woken me up from my slumber on my own family tree with your question. Having started looking at my own ancestry I came to a halt with Matthew Needham who married Elizabeth Worral in Sheffield in 1768. You might ask why am I telling you all this? In trying to find out who were Matthew's parents and where he was born I generated a lot of data about the Needham's and decided to publish it so that others could benefit from a compendium of data on the Needham family. So, I built a website and eventually registered what I'd done with the Guild of One Name Studies. I am the administrator of the One Name Study of the Needham's and all the work I've done can be found on: https://www.needham.one-name.net
This includes a transcription of baptism, burials and marriages up to at least 1837 in a large number of Parishes including many in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Cheshire and Staffordshire plus transcriptions of wills and memorials/gravestones, family trees, archive references etc. Most of this data I've transcribed by looking at the original images. This includes data from Sheffield and Rotherham. There are a large number of trees on the site and all of these can be found on Ancestry.
To answer your question. John Needham 1819-1875 f George Needham m Catherine Martin had I believe two brothers Joseph and George and three sisters: Ellen, Sarah and Elizabeth; no Matthew. Now John's father George (1797 - ?) had five brothers including a Matthew (1812-1877); so it could be he who is the witness at John's wedding. But there is a second possibility. John's father George was the son of Matthew Needham (1774-1844) and Elizabeth Lee so he could be the witness you are seeking
As it happens John's grandfather Matthew (1774-1844) is the son of Matthew Needham (1745?-1787) and Elizabeth Worral who are my 4xgreat grandparents. So we are related. But I will always say that you need to check all this as I could have made a mistake.
My family tree is on the website:https://needham.one-name.net/webtrees_new/index.php?route=/webtrees_new/tree/SheffieldNGN
or Ancestry. If you have an Ancestry account let me have your user name and I'll make you a guest.
Hope this helps
Nigel
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Wow! Thank you Nigel for assisting with taking my family tree back to the 1700's! It was when I was looking at your RootsChat posts and noticed the name Matthew, that I thought that there could be a link between the Matthew that I had found and the Matthews in your tree. It was a bit of a Wildcard really, but to then to find that we are related is great! My grandmother was Rhoda Needham from Barnsley who married John Thomas Killingbeck. I have been using the Genealogist site, but it doesn't seem to generate as much information as Ancestry. I have joined Ancestry on a free trial, but am still finding my way round it and haven't really got to grips with it yet! I really hope that I don't find that Ellis Needham was one of my ancestors! Many thanks for replying!
Pat