Look up in Oxfordshire please

[Mary Jane Tape]

Hi, could anyone look up Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire in 1781 for the birth of my ancestor Thomas Ralph please?  I'd like to know if there are any further Ralphs but I realise this would be a lot of work from a disc.  Thomas and his parents would be good if birth records are on disc.
Many thanks
Mary Jane

[Victor Harvey]

Hi Mary Jane,
Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS) will do a one-off lookup for you for £1.50. Alternatively, you can have the whole of Upper and Lower Heyford baptisms, marriages & burials, along with a number of surrounding parishes for £17.50 which would probably help your research back through the family tree.
searches@ofhs.org.uk
Victor

[NDRFT]

Hi
Buying the CDS's is of immense value and good for the OFHS as it generates income for them but I would NOT recommend you buying this CD in order to search for RALPHS.

Just looking at it there are NO Ralphs, (spelling variants searched as well) in either Lower or Upper Heyford.

I also looked at the Marriage Index 1538 -1837 to see if there are many folks by that name in Oxfordshire getting married and:

MALES
1 x Ralphs
5 x Ralph
1 x Ralphe
0 x Ralfe
0 x Ralf

FEMALE
1 x Ralphes

and there is no Thomas amongst them either. So this was not a very common name within Oxfordshire.

Where did your source information come from and how certain of its accuracy are you - perhaps we can help with a review?

NDRFT

[NDRFT]

Mary Jane

Is it in the 1861 census where you see him and  the birth place aged 80 and his wife Caroline aged 70?

Look at the line above his name where it says they were on a journey boating

Those around him are all boat people and the Oxford - Birmingham canal runs right through Lower Heyford in fact there is a canal boart yard that has been there for years and years.

I wonder if he was born on a barge and his baptism is therefore not recorded at Lower HeyFord, nor his family etc as they were not residents and simply on one of their journeys?

NDRFT

[Mary Jane Tape]

Hi NDRFT
My info re: Thomas Ralph being born in Lower Heyford comes from the 1861 census when he was living in Nock Street, Staffs with his wife Catherine.

Seems an odd birth place to give if it was incorrect!
Mary Jane

[Mary Jane Tape]

 Hi again
My information came from a very poor photocopy so I couldn't see the line above.
So you're saying the family, Thomas, Catherine and their grandchildren Emma, Elizabeth and Emma's husband and daughter (Thomas and Ann Wright) were actually on board a barge on census night?
Mary Jane

[NDRFT]

Mary Jane
I can see them on the 1861 page as you can. The line above your man seems to suggest they were on a canal boat.

I like you cannot be certain.

The occupation is boatman and as there is no entry in the transcribed parish records and the proximity of the canal within Lower Heyford it is a possibility for you to consider and explore that he may have been born as he said in the census at Lower Heyford but on  a canal boat rather than in a house. That may explain why he seemingly was not baptised in Lower Heyford- of course he may never have been baptised?

[Mary Jane Tape]

Hi NDRFT

You have to remember that at the time of the 1861 census Thomas was 80 years old and possibly not working.

My thoughts were that as a young man in the late 1700s he left Oxfordshire to seek work on the canals and later met his wife, Catherine (although she is 10 years younger and may have been his second wife).  She was born in Tipton.

What surprises me is that he doesn't appear on the 1851 census at all.

His son John (at least we assume he had a son called John), John's son William, John's grandson and great grandson were all boatmen until the great grandson became a Drayman.

It would be so much easier if the Georgians and Victorians used random or unusual names, but since several branches of the family all used the same names with the odd different one thrown in occasionally, it makes tracking them down so difficult.

Perhaps Thomas, like William and Thomas, his grandsons, was born whilst travelling and his 'home' was Tipton, but somehow I don't feel this is right - were people living on barges in 1781?
Mary Jane