What was a Spirit & Wine Merchant?

[D. Chaplin]

It has been fun  but my frustration is that I cannot find ANY information of his antecedents or those of his wife. Happily other limbs of the tree are better developed.

[Geordie daughter]

London ancestors pre-1800 are a nightmare to trace. I've not been able to get further back on my line either, and it doesn't help that my earliest known ancestor is a Charles Newton (there are hundreds of them in London) who was born "out of county" according to the 1841 census, and had the poor timing to die before the 1851 census. His children aren't much better, as I know the first four were born in the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell, between roughly 1825 and 1832, but baptisms are impossible to find.

[D. Chaplin]

I'm having some luck with the Irish connection, I think, and this summer will try to confirm the link between a young man who went to "America" in the first years of the 1800s and then the family of the same name who settled first in Trois Rivieres Quebec.
Fub eh!?

[Geordie daughter]

I wish you luck! Oh, the joys of genealogy - but we wouldn't change it for anything, would we?

[D. Chaplin]

Well, I might change a merchant for a king ----

[Geordie daughter]

 

[dodger123]

Does anyone know if any records of licences / taxes paid etc exist for my Spirit Merchant ancestors located Paisley Scotland in the 1800's?  I have found newspaper articles of them being granted or denied such licences, however don't know who issued them or where they would be located now.  Any help much appreciated  .

[ScouseBoy]

If the licencing  authority was a sub committee   of  the Borough Council. then their book of minutes  may be available  in their  county or Borough archives office?

[dodger123]

Thanks Scouseboy I will have a look.