This post was originally entitled "The Ginns family of Little Easton - a possible ancestry" but has been revised in January 2015 because the "possible" became an "actual" as a result of new discoveries so several posts are being revised and new posts added. This is the joy of a blog.
I start this story in Barley in Hertfordshire, the village of the famous “Fox and Hounds” pub sign, that inn surviving from the 1600s. There, in 1578, Richard Rusted (son of John & Margaret) married Katherine Burr. The Rusteds were a yeoman family in this village for a great number of years, a Robert Rusted being the tenant of the whole of Horne manor and its 325 acres in 1770.
Richard was also a
yeoman. John Norden’s famous complete “Survey of Barley” of 1593 and 1603 (with
maps, now in the British Museum with an original duplicate in the Herts Record office which I saw many years ago) shows exactly where Richard Rusted lived in
Barley (with a drawing of the house!) identifies the lands held by him and states that he held over 60 acres of
freehold and copyhold in that village. As most Barley farmers held land
elsewhere, he may well have been quite a prosperous yeoman.
An extracted page from the survey of 1603
Richard and Katherine
had 6 children, including a daughter Katherine who was born in 1594. Katherine Rusted married William Lyon (also a
farmer) the heir of William Snr of Meesdon (d.1594: will ERO) in 1616 at
Barley. The family held land in Meesdon, Nuthampstead, Brent Pelham and
Chrishall (Essex): freehold, copyhold and by lease.
William Lyon Jnr died in 1618 (will ERO) he and Katherine having had no children. He made various bequests (some to the Rusted clan) and left the residue of his estate to his widow, Katherine (then 28) who remarried Thomas Ginn (then 34 and son of Robert in my post of 23rd July 2012 ) at Barley in 1622. It has taken me a very long while (and much lateral thinking) to work all this out.
Thomas and Katherine had five children,Thomas jnr, Robert, Lettice,William and Henry.
Thomas appears in the Therfield records until 1639. In that year Tom sold the only land in Therfield or elsewhere that he is known to have held, this being the reversionary interest in the field called "Haycroft" (see Mardleybury court rolls: HRO) being the land left to him in his grandfather Henry's will of 1615.
I can find no trace of either Tom or Katherine after 1640 or so and the assumption is that they died during the English Civil War/Commonwealth period and their burials are unrecorded.
Of the children, I know a fair bit:
Robert - he married a Frances during the English Civil War period so no marriage has been traced. He and his wife had a daughter, also Frances, in 1646. Robert died at Therfield in 1652 aged 29. His widow Frances (I know it was the mother) married Robert Carter at Royston in 1670. The younger Frances is sadly untraced.
Lettice - married Seth Shadbolt at nearby Kelshall in 1651. Seth had been born to Henry and Agnes (nee Parker) at Kelshall in 1625 but he and Lettice actually lived at Therfield (there is a manorial record of Seth buying a cottage in Therfield manor) but only one child is known, Seth jnr who was born in 1660. Seth Shadbolt "the elder" died in 1686, he was 61. Lettice "the widow" Shadbolt died in 1697, she was 69. Seth jnr married Ann Wood in 1683, became a Yeoman farmer renting two farms in Therfield and had a large family.
Thomas - see later post
William - see later post
Henry - died at Barley in 1660 "a bachelor" in the records. He was 25. It was likely tuberculosis.
No comments:
Post a Comment