Brand PARR of Exning

[wdurham]

I'm trying to trace the origin of Brand PARR (sometimes aka PURR) born in Exning around 1740.

I have his burial at St Martins in Exning on 26 Jun 1821 aged 82.

I have his marriage from Boyds in Landwade in 1768 to Elizabeth Starling

But I have had no luck at all with a baptism, in Exning or anywhere else.

The name is subject to a lot of original spelling errors/differences - PAR, PER, PARRE - and transcription errors, mostly PURRE, where the top of the A was not properly closed off and has therefore been misread.

The closest I have come is an extracted entry on the IGI for a Brand Per BRAND, son of Elizabeth BRAND, christened on 30 Dec 1744.

This seems to bring together the Cambridgeshire tendencies to (a) use mother's maiden names as first names, and (b) give an illegitimate child its father's surname as a first or second name. The Parrs were originally Cambs folk from Burwell/Wilburton/Isleham before they settled in Exning.

Is anyone tracking the Exning Parrs that might be able to help?

[Annette7]

Hi

There are various trees on Ancestry stating that Brand b.1739 Exning is the son of Ellery Parr (bc.1703 Exning, bur.19/10/1774 Exning) and Elizabeth Collins - I note on IGI that they married as Ellery Purr and Elizabeth Collins 25/5/1727 Exning.

Again on IGI I noted children of Ellery and Elizabeth as:

Mary bp.22/2/1728 Exning
Elizabeth bp.8/1/1731 Exning
Charles bp.8/7/1733 Exning
John bp.28/11/1735 Exning
Ellery bp.26/11/1737 Exning
Ellery bp.1/4/1739 Exning
Margaret bp.21/4/1742 Exning
Ann bp.28/4/1745 Exning

but no Brand ??

I've looked at the NBI and there is no infant Ellery buried between 1737 and 1739 and I wonder whether the 2nd. Ellery may possibly have been a mistake and should be Brand or possibly were there twins baptised then??   Without seeing registers it's impossible to say but worth a thought.   Having looked at copies of original records myself umpteen times they are frequently very difficult to read anyway.

Annette

[wdurham]

Hi, Annette -

Thanks for your response! 

No, there isn't a burial for Ellery 1737 on the NBI. But sadly there is one in the Exning records - poor little lad didn't last long: buried 15 Dec 1737.

Ellery 1739 lived to a ripe old age and was buried in Exning on 6 Mar 1821 aged 82

So did Brand. He was buried 26 June 1821, allegedly also 82.

I know a number of researchers have decided that Brand must be a son of Ellery Snr and Elizabeth Collins, because they were the only Parrs in Exning at the time who were baptising children. But those same researchers say Ellery Snr was born in 1703 in Exning, and HIS father Ellery was born in Chatteris in about 1680. Whereas they were actually born in in 1666 in Burwell and 1706 in Isleham respectively!  Some of them have even invented a completely spurious Ellery because they have failed to realise that Ellery 1706 married three times and had 18 children. He was STILL fathering children the year he died in 1774. A very lusty man, which makes an illegitimate son with local village maiden Elizabeth Brand seem quite believable!

Unfortunately, just a mile or so up the road was Burwell, where they had Parrs coming out of their ears - so there's no telling which Per/Parr/Purr young Elizabeth was misbehaving with!

The baptism date of 1744 for Brand Per Brand doesn't fit with the alleged age at death, but who is to say that is correct? He had outlived his wife and she was probably the only one who knew....

It's a mystery. Certainly, he was using the name Parr by the time he married, and one of his grandsons was Joseph Ellery Parr, so there is almost certainly a relationship which may well have been acknowledged as he grew up - but no evidence. 

I am hoping to turn up a will or some other evidence of that kind which might identify his father. And was half hoping that someone might already have done it!

But never mind, back to the drawing board.

[lrfaulkner]

This is six years after the fact, but perhaps you are still looking for Brand's parentage.  The FHL film #950449, Parish Registers of Exning, shows Brand Parr, son of Elizabeth Brand, baseborn, baptized 30 Dec 1744.  I suspect the father was not Ellery (b. 1706), who had his hands full with 3 wives, but his brother Charles (b. 1710), who was a widower at the time of Brand's birth, in between his 2 wives.

[wdurham]

Many thanks for that confirmation of Brand Per/Parr's baptism date in 1744.  I don't think there's any doubt of his illegitimacy - but who his father was is a matter of pure conjecture.  I presently have him listed as a son of Ellery 1706 by Elizabeth Brand - but that's purely for convenience to get him into the tree rather than from any belief in his parentage.

Charles 1710 is a possibility as his father - though Charles himself is a shadowy figure too easily confused with Charles 1708 of Ixworth.

For example, I believe that the Charles who married Jane Brooke in Isleham in 1743 is Charles Parr Jnr of Ixworth - the Ixworth registers show him and wife Jane baptising a whole clutch of children with strong name links to the Ixworth Parrs and no such links to the Isleham/Exning Parrs.

I believe that Charles 1710 of Isleham/Exning married a Sarah Long in Swaffham Prior on 10 Dec 1738, just three months after the death of Grace Buntin Parr in childbirth in Exning. I found it on the IGI, and in the parish record transcriptions. The hasty Sarah Long marriage fits pretty well with a man left with a baby son to care for, but no sisters or nearby mother to rely on for help. Charles and Sarah don't seem to have baptised any children themselves in Swaffham Prior according to the IGI or the parish records. Nor did Charles' son John marry or baptise children in Swaffham Prior.

But they do seem to have lived there according to the Swaffham Prior burial records. No ages at death are given, so it's not possible to be 100% sure about these, but there seems to have been no pre-existing Parr family in SP, so the odds are in favour of these burials being Charles 1710 and his wife and son:

Sarah Parr, wife of Charles, was buried 10 Jun 1762 in Swaffham Prior
John Parr, shoemaker, was buried in Swaffham Prior 30 July 1769
Charles Parr, widower, was buried in Swaffham Prior 13 May 1782

So on balance I don't favour Charles 1710 as the father of Brand Parr. As Elizabeth was an Exning girl perhaps the prolific Ellery 1706 is more likely - but then these villages are all cheek-by-jowl so it's impossible to know whether Elizabeth fell for an older married man or to a lusty farmhand from Burwell!

[lrfaulkner]

Thank you so much for your reply, which covered a lot of my unknowns.  I have not researched Charles at all thoroughly, but what you have makes good sense.  So I shall now add potentially another child to Ellery's long list!  (But I do think Elizabeth would have preferred the lusty farmhand!)  My maiden name was Parr, and I am descended from the multiple Ellery's, William b. 1806, and his son, my great-grandfather, George, who emigrated from Exning in 1851 to Ontario and, ultimately, Winnipeg.  I have the family traced back to Marke Parre, b. 1539 in Wilburton, and possibly a father Henery - which is about as far as any Parr researchers I have communicated with have been able to go.

[wdurham]

I suspect you're in touch with the same small group of Parr researchers as I was a couple of years back!

My link to the Parrs is through the first husband of my aunt - my father's eldest sister Agnes May Watson married Philip Parr King b 1904 in Exning.  Philip is descended directly from Brand Parr and Elizabeth Starling via their son Thomas, his son John, John's daughter Harriet who married John King, and finally William Parr King. All Exning folks. Coincidently, Philip Parr King's daughter Jenny, b Exning 1945, is also now in Canada, having emigrated in 1970.

Hence my interest in Brand's parentage. We can't make the link backwards through all the Ellerys to their earliest documented roots in Wilburton without evidence that Brand was a member of the same family.  And such evidence just hasn't been forthcoming. I've been hoping to find his marriage record thinking that perhaps it might give parentage, but no luck as yet. All I've found is a marriage year in Landwade in Boyds Register.

Interestingly, the first Parr found in Wilburton - allegedly 1512-1555, Henery or Henry - is, I suspect, a mistranscription for Ellery. It's a hard name to spell correctly when written down - and remember that village clerics in those days were barely literate! - and even harder to transcribe - e.g. in the Isleham record transcripts Ellery 1706 is recorded as Eliz, son of Eliz and Mary! I've also seen Hilary, Henry, Ellry, Helory and Hellrei.

There are at least two other Ellerys from outside the Wilburton/Burwell/Isleham/Exning branches we are both tracking - one in Chippenham married to an Ann, and another in Cambridge married to a Caroline - so I suspect this persistent name (however it is spelled!) has a strong meaning for the Parr clan, that may pre-date earliest written records. 

[lrfaulkner]

I would say you have reached the ultimate brick wall - Elizabeth clearly kept her secret!  And with an illegitimate child, there is no help from naming patterns among his children.  I am about to start an attempt at organizing, as opposed to collecting, all my Parr information, so if I find anything at all about Brand I will let you know.  I suspect he didn't know his father's identity, so the missing marriage record might be useless.  By the way, I was glad to see you point out the 3 wives of Ellery b. 1706 and also debunk the Chatteris Ellery - a lot of misinformation out there.  I've been arguing the Chatteris birth with a couple of "cousins" for a long time!  And I've also found an "Eleary," if you are collecting various spellings of the name.  Thank you for pointing out that the original Henery was probably an Ellery - isn't that an uncommon name for England at that time?

Good luck in your search!

[foxoak]

Resurrecting an old thread here!  I am re-starting on my Parr research, and have got back to Brand Parr - now believed, I think, to be the baseborn "Brand Per Brand" son of Elizabeth Brand born in Exning in 1744, although possibly the son of Ellery b 1705.   

I'm getting tied in knots with this Ellery and other Ellerys! I have read that Ellery b 1705 had three wives, but which ones are his wives?  He married Elizabeth Collins in 1727 I'm fairly certain.  But then I have marriages for an Ellery Parr and Frances Burrough in 1749 in Exning, an Ellery Parr with an Ann Rogers in 1751 in Exning, and an Ellery Parr and  Lettice Page in 1763 in Exning. I can't believe they are all the same guy, one must belong to Ellery son of Ellery b 1705.  Does anyone have anything definitive they can give me before I go ever so slightly mad?  Many thanks!