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« on: Sunday 19 October 14 21:37 BST (UK) »
This is my first post on here, I was reading some posts from last April about the witch at Edmundbyers which also mentioned the Crooked Oak witch. I did the bulk of my family research about 15 years ago before there was much help from the internet and found something very odd about Crooked Oak which some of you may find interesting. My 6xGt Grandfather Godfrey Stevenson moved to Crooked Oak in 1699, after his marriage to Elizabeth Barnfather in Stanhope. Elizabeth died around 1707 and he married Ann March at St Andrew's Shotley in 1708. My 5x Gt Grandfather James was born on the 25th July 1719. Now here is the strange part. In 1728, 6 of the children's baptisms are recorded again in the register along with a daughter of a Joseph Ruston I think it is, who also lived at Crooked Oak, I wondered why this was? Could it be to do with so called witches? Branches of the family continued to live at Crooked Oak until 1828 and nearby Leadmill until 1845, that is a 140 year connection to the area. The reason I found the Edmundbyers post was because the internet helped me find the burial of the earlier mentioned James Stevenson in 1781 in Edmundbyers rather than the usual Muggleswick.
I hope you don't find this post too rambling, I just thought some of you Durham genealogists may find it interesting. Paul Stevenson.