« Reply #21 on: Tuesday 22 September 09 19:05 BST (UK) »
Wahey,
I have an interest in this thread. My daughter-in-law recently produced us a grandson and inter alia it came up that his other grandfather on his mother's side had the unusial middle name of grimalde.
So after a day or two of fossicking as to where this might have originated I came to John Usher marrying Sarah Ann Farmer in 1875. Sarah Ann Farmer had two brothers named Grimalde Farmer who both died in infancy. So some progress.
Sarah Anne's mum was Elizabeth Townsend b Holbeach ca 1831/2. She I think had two brothers Cotnam Townsend b Whaplode ca 1825/6 and Grimalde Townsend, christened Holbeach 1833. I suspect that they shared common parents in George & Sarah (Fields) Townsend.
On the 1841 census, Cotnam, it seems to me appears on the same page as his grandfather, Cotnam Fields as an apprentice newspaper printer and editor, in Holbeach under the name of Thomas Townsend - a common foible amongst the young who shun the unusual names foisted on them by their parents :-). Grimalde Usher was no different - went by the name of James!
Sarah Fields was the daughter of Cotnam Fields and Ann Grimalde who married in Holbeach ca 1794

So someone, somewhere on ancestry has either surmised the same as I about Cotnam Townsend's origins or sought the original parish records for Whaplode but they also give George and Sarah (Fields) as his parents.
HTH,
Howdie (in the chatroom)
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