ARMSTRONGS of Ravensden

[johnP-bedford]

Bob,   Seems the Elizabeth Partridge you mention who married the policeman Armstrong was born Wimbledon, Surrey; & tracing her back thru census, her father came from Gloucestershire.  I have not found any links of my Partridges to Surrey or West Country as yet.  But thanks for the thought.

Do you have any other Partridge names that hail from North Beds or maybe across the fields into Northants.

Regards John

[johnP-bedford]

Thanks so much, JP - and David - for all your help. And it probably isn't done with yet....! 

Wendy - been re-reading this topic - how right you were ! this is going on & on 

[johnP-bedford]

No problem Bob,  but I know someone with an interest in Peacocks - any from Southill ?

[wdurham]

JP - Guess you're right about this going on and on - so far my initial innocent request for info on the Ravensden Armstrongs has roped in about four other folk and we are all related...! Including your goodself.

Bob - is your tree paper based, or do you hold it on computer? And if on computer, are you on Genes-Reunited or any of the other family tree publishers?

[wdurham]

Well, Bob, family history in this internet age is a real community. The growth of sites like Rootschat, Genes Reunited and Ancestry means that you can find relatives, however distant, and "talk" to them via boards like this or via email and swap information.  For instance, I "met" via G-R a fellow descendant of the Chandlers (the family Eliza Armstrong 1836 married into) who has provided me with the inscriptions from Eliza's headstone and that of her husband George, and I even have a photo of the memorial urn for my great-great aunt Louisa Chandler.

I have found Rootschat in particular to be incredibly useful. Folk like David (bedfordshire boy) and John give up hours of their own time to help others, and for my Cambridgeshire brick walls I had a huge amount of help from Keith Sherwood, another Rootschatter, who diligently pored over parish records for me (and a hundred others!)  and produced masses of information.

The enormous growth in the popularity of "doing your family tree" has coincided with a vast increase in resources available online.

When I started just 7 years ago, the IGI and the LDS 1881 census were about the only available online sources.

Now we have census information from 1841 to 1901, with 1911 coming soon. Many family history societies are publishing parish record transcriptions on CD (I am involved with transcription for Kent FHS at the moment). People are submitting their family trees to Ancestry and Genes-Reunited in ever increasing numbers. Subscription sites give you access to archives like Boyds Marriage Index and Pallotts. And of course, for more recent history, the amazing FreeBMD is now nearly complete before about 1910 - a fantastic finding aid which lets you pinpoint certificates. FreeREG is planning the same task with parish registers, and in a few years time there will hardly be any need to visit a records office or book out an LDS film at all....

All of this makes it easy. People coming fresh to family research these days think it SHOULD be easy - and will often take the "easy" route.  The much-cited parentage of William Armstrong b 1792 is a classic case - the only William in Bedfordshire on the IGI that fits that birthdate is William b in Upper Gravenhurst to Thomas and Phoebe. Ergo, he must be the one - even though his birthplace is given as Ravensden in the census info, and he spent his life living just a few miles from Ravensden at Wilden and Thurleigh. Once this is picked up on by others researching the same family, it is taken as fact. Even JohnP fell foul of this one!

My neighbour is fascinated by the length of time I spend messing about with my family - she said "Can I look for MY family tree on the internet?". I said: "It's not quite that easy - you will be able to find individuals through the census and the GRO records, but no-one will have done your tree for you!" WRONG! We sat down at my computer with a few basic facts about her granny, and after a couple of hours of census/BMD-hopping, had an outline going back to 1837. Then a quick Google hunt found a tree stretching back from one of her ancestors in the 1851 census all the way to 1650....and 2 separate matches on Genes-Reunited gave us similar datasets for other branches (and put her in touch with a long-lost cousin!)  In just one afternoon's work, we did what it had taken me about 4 years to achieve with my own family!

And this is where the problem lies today.

I have stressed to my neighbour that it isn't enough to take other people's info at face value - she must find those links herself and be confident of them, and she must send for the certificates etc so she can be sure that the post-1837 links are all correctly made. But I doubt she will go to the trouble.

My quick afternoon's work could contain countless errors and mistaken links, and if she ever publishes the existing tree on Ancestry or G-R, all those errors will get out into the public domain, where they will be mistaken for fact.

Which is why it is so important to check and check - or enlist the aid of kind people like Rootschatters who will help.

Having said all that I am now convinced enough that John Armstrong who died in Ravensden in 1826 was the John Armstrong born to John and Edy Grange in Wilstead in 1760/1761 that I have joined him and his forbears up with the rest of my tree.

[castlebob]

Hello All,
Now that the Ravensden link is sorted, you may be interested in the Elstow branchwhich I did some work on last year, as follows:
A Samuel Armstrong born about 1750's wed Sarah. One of their girls Edy/Edith b 1785 c1788 in Elstow wed Samuel Busby on 1st Mar 1806, died Houghton C in 1841
Edith had an illeg son (by 1 month) called Samuel Busby Armstrong 16th Feb 1806 in Elstow. Samuel wed Ann Page of Goldington - a main Armstrong centre, in 1827. They had 10 kids starting with Ann in 1827, but they had dropped the Armstrong surname by then.
On 19th Apr 1827 an Overseers of the Poor in Houghton C asked for Samuel Busby alias Armstrong & wife Ann to be moved to Wilshamstead. Wilshamstead was crossed out & Elstow inserted.
The 1861c for Haynes shows Ann Busby (Armstrong) living as a servant with William & Hannah Armstrong ( Will & Hannah are fromthe Wilstead line) I believe theyt took her in as she was family.
Samuel Busby who wed Edy was probably the son of Beecher Busby & wife Christian (nee Goodman) who wed in 1765 at Bedford St Mary. Samuel was baptised at...Thurleigh! The date was 15th May 1774. Beecher wed again in Oct at Thurl to a Mary Wakeman.
As you see from above, all branches seem cclosely linked.
Anyway, I'll leave it for your perusal,
Cheers,
Bob

[castlebob]

Hello Again,
Re the Elstow stuff: If you look at Mary Robins who wed William Armstrong in Cople in 1779, you'll see Mary's parents were wed in Elstow!
Also, there is a strong non-conformist link to both the Thurleigh & Haynes Beds branches . A John Armstrong swore allegiance to the Crown in 1727. Baptists & Methodists are frequent in the Beds Armstrongs, also the Herts branches, where several were preachers.
Bob

[wdurham]

Samuel Armstrong is yet another Armstrong arriving in a village out of nowhere around 1788.

There are now several of them. Thomas appears in Upper Gravenhurst in about 1788. John in Riseley about 1700. Joseph/Josiah/Joshua in Thurleigh about 1786.

I won't count William in Cople and John in Ravensden or William in Wilden, because we are fairly confident of their origins, but none the less they all arrive and are the only Armstrongs at the time.

This is a classic pattern of a group of incomers, spreading out and colonising a county!

What's even more interesting is that with the exception of John, who turned up in Riseley in about 1700 with the baptism of his first daughter, they all arrive in villages and sometimes marry local females at about the same time - the 1780's.

So where did they come from?

One thing that has emerged out of this line of enquiry - even the IGI extracted records can't be relied upon for a full picture. Bedfordshire seems almost totally covered  - yet there are gaps within individual batches. This may well be because the records we are looking for are non-conformist and were not extracted by the IGI. We know that at least some of the Armstrongs were Baptists and Wesleyans.

But in the Cople batches, there is no record of the second marriage of William Armstrong or the baptism of Henry in 1803, nor of Henry's first daughter Hannah in 1826, though his marriage to Maria and all his other children are covered. 

In Thurleigh batches there is no record of William 1792 and Ann Gammons Wrench' marriage and their children, except Sarah, the first daughter. Thomas's children are there, though.

This does cast a small shadow over the correct identification of John 1760 of Ravensden. There IS a possibility that another John Armstrong was born about the right time and simply isn't on the IGI. 

[johnP-bedford]

In Thurleigh batches there is no record of William 1792 and Ann Gammons Wrench' marriage and their children, except Sarah, the first daughter. Thomas's children are there, though.

Wendy,

Batch M003651 has marriage of Wm Rench to Ann Gamons on 12 Oct 1812

Batch C003652 has baptism of Mary <Wrench> on 9 Apr 1815
                                            &   Rebecca <Wrench>  on  8 Apr 1818

Both extracted entries, children of William Wrench & Ann

Regards John