Roose Free chr 17 Aug 1561 Dallinghoo

[Suffolk Sue B]

Darn it!! Just wrote loads and then lost it!!!! So I'll Have to start again!
Double Marriage at Benhall 20 June 1809
Thomas Rous sotp and Ann Rous also sotp married by Licience. Both signed. Witt Thomas Rous and Hannah Rous
Also the same day
Thomas Rous sotp and Lettice Rouse sotp by Banns. Thomas signed Lettice by mark. Witts Thomas Rous and Hannah Rous.
It appears (by the handwriting) that the bridegrooms witnessed each other and Thomas who married Lettice had a sister Hannah so she could have been the other witness.
Also the signature of Thomas who married Lettice appears to be very similar to the Thomas Rous who was involved in taking the 1841 census.
In 1841 Thomas (who married Lettice) is with his son James and daughter in law Caroline at Chatburn Farmhouse, Westleton, also there at this census was Thomas' mother Sarah (Day). For some reason Lettice was in Middleton visiting daughter Athelinda and her husband William Nollar.
In 1851 Lettice was in Benhall acting as housekeeper to a Sarah Rous - until today I'd thought this to be Sarah Rous (Day), but it's now clearer....................the Sarah Rous mentioned has to be her step mother Sarah (Goose).
Somehow Lettice being the daughter of William Rous and Catherine Calver doesn't feel right - if that were the case than surely this Lettice would state her place of birth as Westleton rather than Benhall.  Also there is a baptism at Benhall in 1786 for a Lettice the daughter of John Rous and Mary Crow.
Don't you just love these Rouses?!!!
I haven't seen the marriage of Mary Rous of Benhall in 1803 where Lettice is a witness (lots for me to do at the RO next time I'm there) but I'm very familiar with the name Betsy Freeman - in fact I have a picture of her somewhere. This link somehow makes beautiful sense somehow - but need to think it through.
But I'm sure our 'Lettice/Letta' is the lady baptised at Benhall and who married Thomas Rous and went on to be the parents of James and Athelinda Rous.
William Rous and Catherine have always been in the shadows........although they must belong to the Westleton clan I've never found anything that suggests they are closely linked. Having said that the Rouses always give me a headache!
I have several wills, which should link them all together, but they don't - there is a piece of the jigsaw missing, and I can't find out which piece it is!!!!

[esdel]

Thanks Sue - a great help

But do we know anything about Thomas + Ann of the 20 June !809 Benhall marriage?
I have no children - indeed they are never heard of again!

Are you sure it is Catherine Calver? I have her as Caroline Calver.
My Lettie may be an error but DOES have her own christening date. It is dau of William and Carolie Calver christened on 13 Mar 1867 at Westleton.
So MAYBE there really were two gals: Lettice of Benhall and Lettie of Westleton


Would you please explain this bit: you say
"In 1851 Lettice was in Benhall acting as housekeeper to a Sarah Rous - until today I'd thought this to be Sarah Rous (Day), but it's now clearer....................the Sarah Rous mentioned has to be her step mother Sarah (Goose). "
My problem is seeing the step mother bit. For all I have on Sarah Goose is this - nothing else!
"William Rous in around 1785 married Caroline Calver.
Then in 1813 he married a Sarah who had picked up the name Goose from a previous marriage"

So which William Rous(e) is which!
I can offer:

William son of Thomas + Hannah, b 1759 at Teberton, husb of Sarah Wink.

William  son of Sarah Rous (wife of Robert Robson) chr 29 Jan 1769 at Clovehithe, Leiston

Willian who married Goose then Calver

[esdel]

Please anyone, especially Sue, tell me a bit more about the connections between the Rous family and the Free family

Here is what I know (think!) so far:

Roose, Charles William
(s/o William David Roose + Sarah Ann Clarke)
+
Free, Ethel Mary Elizabeth Maud
(d/o William George + Harriet Blowers)
married on 25 Jun 1913
at St Peter Theberton Suffolk
(they had 6 Rouse children)

posibly Rouse, Edmund of Badingham
+
Free, Roose (chr Dallinghoo  on 17 Aug 1561 and d/o John Free + Joan Birle)
children unknown

Free, William
(s/o William Free + Mary Barker)
+
Rous, Hannah
(d/o John Rouse + Diana Wink)
on 10 Dec 1812
at Holy Trinity Middleton
(they had 11 Free children)


Free, Simon Baker Hunt
(illeg of John Hunt + Caroline Cole
chr 3 Jun 1849, d 5 May 1922)
+
Freeman, Betsy
(d/o Sternfield Rowe Freeman + Caroline Howard
and gdau of the Mary Rous of Benhall who
married John Howard at Benhall 18 Oct 1803)
(They had these children:
Richard Freeman Free abt 1872 - had 9 children
Arthur John Free 1874
Ethel Agnes Free 1877
Ernest Baker Free 1879 - had 6 children
Simon Baker Free 1879
Samuel Francis Free 1881 - wife Amy Barham
Herbert Free 1884 - had 10 children
Jethro Free 1886 - had 2 children
Alfred Charles Free 1888
Robert Free 1889 - Had Dulcie with Florence Pipe

[Suffolk Sue B]

The only one I can't confirm is Edmund as I've not done too much work on the FREE family -  although my husband's grandmother was a FREE and they are an interesting family to research. I'm sure you know that they were Quakers, and then I came across a baptism at Middleton for one of the Frees which mentioned this. Also they were literate at a time when many working people were not - I don't know if it was because they were Quaker but I have been reliably informed that one the FREE family taught a good proportion of Middleton to read and write. When I have time I'll try and find my notes.

[esdel]

Yes, one of we Frees was a schoolmaster.
That is from memory as I have NO HOPE of finding out which one except by reading the whole family tree!

Let me know if you find anything at all about Edmund as he is pushig the ancient frontiers of my Frees

Quakers, maybe - but NOT if that means "well behaved". There were some right funny goings on among the gravestones, I am told

[Suffolk Sue B]

Esdel I've just checked the Westleton fiche and William's wife was Catherine. However looking at her surname again I'm not s0 sure it isn't CARVER rather than CALVER.

[Suffolk Mawther]

Calver and Carver are often the same name, depends who wrote down what they thought they had heard 

Said aloud, especially the owd Suffolk way, they dew sound the same!

Pat ...

[esdel]

Esdel I've just checked the Westleton fiche and William's wife was Catherine. However looking at her surname again I'm not s0 sure it isn't CARVER rather than CALVER.

Are you sure it is Catherine Calver? I have her as Caroline Calver.

Please verify WHICH William you are talking about and WHEN he married Calver/Carver and how many wives he had after her and if a later wife was a Goose by HER earlier marriage and what name she was born with.

This is vital as some William Rous  marriage to a Caroline Calver produced Lettia Rous chr 13 March 1786 at Westleton Parish Church
Maybe this Lettia is NOT Lettice chr 1786 at Benhall
I think Lettia's parents were William Rous + Caroline Calver while Lettice's parents were John Rous + Mary Crowe

[Suffolk Sue B]

I've just been through the fiche for Westleton again - William Rous' wife was definitely Catherine. Their marriage is recorded in the PR so clearly and in a good hand that it's impossible to mistake it for anything else. At their marriage 16 August 1774 Catherine's surname is written as Calver, but at the baptism of Letitia it could be Carver.
William and Catherine had three known children - Elizabeth baptised 1778, Richard baptised 1783 and Letitia baptised 1787, all at Westleton. This William Rous (seen in the PR's with and without the 'e') is a puzzle, he cannot belong to Thomas who married Hannah as their son William was baptised in 1759 and married Sarah Wink at Laxfield in 1783. Also William s/o Thomas and Hannah would have been too young to marry in 1774, well maybe not too young but it would be highly unlikely.
I've never found another marriage for William after the death of Catherine in 1808.
 
Lettice Rous baptised at Benhall in 1786 the daughter of John Rous and Mary (Crow) it was this Lettice who married Thomas Rous (son of Thomas Rous and Sarah Day) in 1809. In the census of 1841 Lettice was staying with her daughter Athelinda (who married William Nollar) at Middleton, Then at the next census in 1851 Lettice (by then a widow) was living at Benhall with a Sarah Rous aged 91. Also there were two grandchildren of Lettice Rous - Louisa Nollar and Margaret Rous (daughter of Lettice's son James). Lettice is described as being 'housekeeper', and as I said previously it suddenly struck me that Sarah Rous wasn't her mother in law, but her step mother, the second wife (previously Sarah Goose) of her father John Rous. Lettice also gives she was born at Benhall. I should add that Sarah Goose, the second wife of John Rous was mentioned in his will, stating that she was to have rooms in their house at Benhall, any household 'bits and pieces' she wanted and an income paid every quarter!

Having spent many hours poring over the PR's for Westleton it appears there must have been two Rouse families - or at least two (or more) branches of the same family.............I have never been able to get my head around where (for instance) William Rous and Catherine fit in, or other Rous people that don't appear to connect to the Rouses I'm familiar with. I have all the wills that should connect these people, and they don't!