TOPE family, Exeter & Totnes, Devon

[Fairmeadow2]

I have three Miss Topes in different branches of my family tree, and as Tope does not seem a very common name, wondered whether this might be more than a coincidence. The three are:
Sarah Tope probably born c.1753
Grace Tope probably born in the 1740s
Esther Tope probably born c.1753

Thomas Wills of Exeter (c.1752-1819) a slater and plasterer of Exeter Holy Trinity, married Sarah Tope of Exeter St Sidwell as his second wife on 22 May 1791 at Exeter St Sidwell. If I have correctly identified her as the Sarah Wills buried at Exeter St Pauls on 30 Aug 1828 aged 75, she would have been born c.1753. This marriage produced four children baptised at Exeter Holy Trinity or Exeter St Mary Major between Apr 1792 and Feb 1797. The youngest, William, is my great-great-grandfather.

This William Wills of Exeter Holy Trinity married Grace Veasey at Berry Pomeroy in 1819. Her paternal grandmother was a Grace Tope, who married Thomas Veasey at Berry Pomeroy, which is just across the river from Totnes and home to slate quarries whose produce was doubtless shipped to Exeter slaters. Grace Veasey's paternal grandmother was Grace Tope, who married Thomas Veasey at Berry Pomeroy on 7 Aug 1768. Thomas & Grace Veasey had 10 children bapt at Berry Pomeroy between Jan 1769 and Jun 1782, before Grace was buried there in Jul 1784. Grace Tope was presumably born in the 1740s.

Thomas Veasey then remarried on 12 May 1786 at Berry Pomeroy to an Esther Tope, and Thomas & Esther had 4 more children bapt at Berry Pomeroy between Jan 1787 and Jun 1794. Esther Veasey of Bridgetown, Berry Pomeroy, was buried there in Jun 1820 aged 67, so born c.1753.

So, my tree has three Miss Topes, all born in the 1740s or early 1750s. Can anyone connect them?

[bearkat]

I have some information on the TOPE family from Devon.  I will look it out.

I'm not sure any were in Exeter though.

[bearkat]

The TOPES I am researching came from Harberton. I have a couple of Graces:

Grace TOOPE daughter of Nicholas and Elizabeth who married in 1754

Grace TOOP daughter of Samuel and Mary who married in 1792

If there's any connection it must be further back. 

[Schoch]

Familysearch.org has these listed. Sarah/Grace show parents as William Tope and Grace

Esther is listed as marrying Veasey

[Fairmeadow2]

Yes, many thanks, I had seen the Family Search 1740 baptism of Grace d. William Tope/Grace (Hannaford).

My problem is that I could only find the one local baptism, while there are two Grace Tope marriages, both at Berry Pomeroy and three years apart - the one I descend from to Thomas Veasey on 7 Aug 1768 and an earlier one to Elias Lang on 26 Feb 1765. Aggravating to have two different contemporary Grace Topes in the same village. One could possibly be a re-marriage of her mother, but I haven't found a likely William Tope burial. I was hoping someone might have sorted out the family - Thomas & Grace had quite enough children to number a few family historians amongst their descendants.

If the 1740 baptism is correct, then Grace Tope was about 6 years older than her husband. Far from impossible, but enough to add a note of caution. She was pregnant at marriage to Thomas Veasey (first baptism, a William, in Jan 1769). Ten baptisms in all, the last in Jun 1782, and then a Grace Veasey buried in Jul 1784, about when no.11 might have been expected. Thomas Veasey, left with a large brood of infants and all the girls under 10, would have been in urgent need of a replacement wife, so up pops Esther Tope, who he married in May 1786. Yes, she was pregnant too, with the first Thomas/Esther (or Hester) baptism in Jan 1787.

[windeatt]

The Toops were a well-known firm of masons in Horrabridge (the parish was Buckland Monachorum) and Mike Brown wrote a booklet about them a while ago: The Toops: Monumental Masons of Western Dartmoor, 1997 (D)

see http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonIndexes/DartmoorBooks.html

Not sure, however, how you would get hold of it. 

Sandra

[Fairmeadow2]

Thanks Sandra. That sounds very credible - slaters and monumental masons might well have connections.

[windeatt]

I dug out the booklet I mentioned and I'm afraid there is no joy there.  Mike Brown's parish register transcriptions start in 1770.  The text is very dense and I had a skip through but nothing stood out.  So probably not worth pursuing that direction - although Deborah O'Brien, who can often be found on the DEVON FHS message board (http://members.boardhost.com/devonfhs/) is very knowledgeable about that particular area of Devon and might be able to help. 

From my own experiences researching family history I would guess they are probably related somehow - I've found loads of cousins and second cousins marrying - but at that early date it will be difficult to prove as these trades/crafts families do move about so.  I've also found almost as many older women marrying younger men as vice versa (especially second marriages).  And a last observation: there were loads and loads of masons and builders in the Horrabridge area (was it the availability of the local granite I wonder?) and my lot moved on out to Exeter (St. Sidwells) and then on to the coast to take advantage of the building booms there in the early to middle nineteenth century.  Various sons and family members took up different branches of the building trade, e.g. slaters, plumbers, glaziers, etc.

Good luck!

Sandra