I'd always wondered about the origin of the name. There were some URLWINs & URLWINGs in SE Bucks before 1700, but I couldn't find any connection to them, & they seemed to carry on after the IRVINGs (& variants) appeared elsewhere in the region. Searches of the IGI, & the local family history society databases, came up with the same conclusion, that there were no Irvings in the area before the 1690s, when several men with the name suddenly appeared.
I knew that IRVING was a common name in southern Scotland & the English border regions, but I didn't see why a bunch of Scots or northeners would all decide to come south at once. Then I heard, via Celia Renshaw, of Margaret Spufford's “The Great Reclothing of Rural England – Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century”, She took it so much for granted that many travelling chapmen were Scottish that she paid the fact little attention. I did a little digging, & the few scraps I found appeared to confirm it.
There was also a dissident connection, with Presbyterian Scots typically finding English dissenters more congenial than the Church of England. This fits quite well, as although they didn't leave any records I know of, we know there were noncomformist meetings in Bledlow in the late 17th century, & the names of some of the members - mostly from complaints by the church authorities. The family my William married into seems to have been involved. It all adds up.
I don't have any special records. I found the transcription of Bledlow PRs by Dexter Eustis useful (on May Lanchbury's website at
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lanchbury/, where she also hosts my 1841 census transcriptions), but be aware that it's not complete, because he didn't have access to complete records. I'm able to visit the archives in Aylesbury, Oxford (though they're shut for the next month) & Reading, which is an advantage many people don't, & buy searches & CDs from the local familiy history societies, which anybody can. Other researchers have been helpful.
