The elusive Gibbins branch of the family.

[Mercian]

Hah! Interesting 'twists and turns' is a polite way of saying that you may find more than one connection between (or even within) the same families (e.g. Gibbins, Robinson, Stevenson, Waddington etc) in the course of a couple of generations, in and around Hallaton, Medbourne, Blaston etc. No slur intended! but there are complexities.    I think the Bishop-Gibbins link I have suggested through the Waddingtons is too far back to explain the  use of the word 'nephew' in the census relationship between Daniel Bishop and George Gibbins: but it might be the precursor of a later connection.

[Mercian]

A trawl of Leicestershire Bishops on IGI shows the family securely based there and at Asfordby and Gilmorton from the 17th century, but no natural focus near Hallaton, so Elizabeth is the Hallaton/Medbourne connection for that 1778 marriage. In addition to Dan and Sam I count six other children (all except Thomas 1788 being girls) to Edward and Elizabeth at Thurmaston, dating 1779-1790, fitting that marriage date neatly. There are other contemporary Thurmaston Bishop families with similar christian names (?brothers of Edward?) Edward as a Bishop christian name seems to be long-standing. Looks good.  M

[totally leics]

Hi Mercian,
  I have been busily trying to collate the information I have so far uncovered for the Gibbins clan. Collating, I'm afraid, is not my strongest point... however here are some of the facts thus far;

George Gibbins, who was the initial starting point, was the son of
          HENRY BORN BLASTON 1800 , CHRISTENED MEDBOURNE 3/NOV/1801
       ANNE JANE JOHNSON BORN 27/JAN/1802 HALLATON
 MARRIED 12/SEPT/1822 HORNINGHOLD

          HENRY'S PARENTS WERE WILLIAM GIBBINS CHR 31/MAR/1771 & ELIZABETH BREWSTER WHO MARRIED AT MEDBOURNE CUM HOLT ON 9/DEC/1799

         WILLIAM'S PARENTS WERE THOMAS GIBBINS CHR 6/SEPT/1747 AT HALLATON & JANE FREESTONE WHO MARRIED 12/NOV/1766 AT MEDBOURNE CUM HOLT.

          THOMAS' PARENTS WERE THOMAS GIBBINS BORN HALLATON c 1716 & SARAH CARTER BORN HALLATON c 1720. HAVE YET TO DISCOVER THEIR MARRIAGE DETAILS.

   There the trail goes cold. I have several other Gibbins threads I am trying to piece together including your two ladies Lydia and Elizabeth in the immediate area, plus another line which keeps showing up in the Allexton, Belton in Rut and Skeffington area who I'm seeking a connection to due to their geographical proximity. It is hard to believe that so many apparently disparate lines of my family are all within a fifteen mile radius of each other quite aside from the Gibbins! So I will not be too surprised if and when "interesting" connections arise . I'm still trying to work out how the Bishop-Hughes-Gibbins exactly relate to George although thanks to Mike's find I know they do.. I really must find time to re visit the records office!
  Any further finds or info I will be sure to let you know.   TL
         

[Mercian]

Hi Totally Leics!

It's worth remembering that there may be people in the Hallaton and Medbourne registers who do not appear in IGI - hence the need to check.

But it does look as if William who married E. Brewster must be William 1771, son of Thomas Gibbins and Jane Freestone. They also have John (1767) and Amelia (1769). I expect you have seen that there are two other Medbourne Thomas-Jane marriages round about then, one with children William Jane and John (1749, 52, 55) and another later, with children Thomas 1779, Robert 1782, George 1785 and Francis 1790. It seems unlikely that all three father Thomases are the same, having children between 1749 and 1790, but there's a fair possibility that the second and third ones (ie yours and the later one) are the same father Thomas, maybe with two wives causing that gap from 1771-1779. Then the span would be 1767-1790, perfectly possible. All these seem to have nothing to do with Thomas and Elizabeth, who have a family of eight at Hallaton between 1755 and 1772.

So it's a good theory that your Thomas is Thomas son of Thomas and Sarah Carter, 1747 of Hallaton, though he would also be the prime candidate for the Medbourne 1779-1790 family, so the possibility of two marriages remains. Or maybe one marriage with a long gap with no record of children.

It must be right to rule out the two earlier Hallaton Thomas-Jane marriages, namely Thomas=Jane Patmon (Marie and John, 1730-1731) and Thos=Jane Bond (John 1738, Elizabeth 1740, Henry 1742) as possible fathers for your Thomas. Of course they might have had children called Thomas, but IGI doesn't tell us.

For your elder Thomas, (who married Sarah Carter) - we haven't got that marriage, have we? - you might cautiously consider Thomas (bp 19 June 1713), the fifth of six children of Henry Gibbins (GIBBENS) of Blaston - they were Sarah (1707), William (1708), Henry (1709), Ann (1711), Thomas, and Elizabeth (1714).

I count that William Gibbins and Eliz Brewster have 7 children (1800-1813), Henry being the eldest surviving son (Thomas 1800 died in infancy).  Thomas and Sarah (Carter) have six, 1747-1758, including a infant mortality Edward of 1754 'replaced' 1758. Lots of room there for lateral investigation.

I think it's possible that my Henry Gibbins, father of Lydia and Elizabeth (Medbourne), is Henry 5th April 1751, 3rd son of Thomas and Sarah, brother of your putative ancestor Thomas, who is the elder. But then he might also be Henry 1752, son of Henry & Elizabeth Sewell of Blaston, in which case his father Henry is probably Henry 1709 son of Henry the elder of Blaston. Or even (though I doubt it) he might be Henry the son of Thomas Gibbins and Jane Bond (10 June 1742, Hallaton) - so I am really up the creek! About now a will or two would help.

Like space-spaghetti, isn't it?  Mercian

[Mercian]

Another thought: Mike from Leicester's post above about the two Hughes marriages, both by licence. These seem to mean that Samuel Bishop (born 1784) married Ann Hughes in 1823 (when he was nearly 40): and if she was of similar age then the chances are that the marriage to Hugh Hughes by Ann Gibbins is the same Ann, in her first marriage twenty years previously. Therefore Samuel Bishop is married to Ann (nee Gibbins, afterwards Hughes), who was perhaps born about 1783-ish, and Anne's brother must be George's  father that you were looking for to begin with: that's why George is Samuel (and Daniel) Bishop's nephew in the 1851 census.

The problem with that is, that there is no Ann listed as the sister of Henry (1801) son of William and Elizabeth. BUT Ann (born 6th April, bapt. 14th April 1784, just the right age) is the second listed child of Thomas Gibbins and Elizabeth, of Blaston, for whom IGI also lists children George (2 Feb 1783), Elizabeth (14 Aug 1785), Elizabeth (23 May 1786), Mary (1 July 1787), Thomas (23 May/4th Sept 1788), Elizabeth (12 Sept 1791), Robert (4 Nov 1792), Jane (12 Sep 1794), Susannah (12 Jan 1800) and Frances Elizabeth (14 Feb 1802) - 11 counted including Ann. But NO Henry!

The presence of a George among Ann's brothers and sisters - and he is her nearest sibling - does really hint that the original young George who lived with the millers of Thurmaston, and became one, was a descendant of this  family, as the relationship to Ann seems to indicate. I think you might have to invent a Henry as brother to the known Ann - probably born c1795-99, where there's a gap, and to make him the right age in 1824 - because you CAN'T invent an Ann c1784 as daughter of William and Elizabeth, since their children are 1800-1813 - two decades later.  That would make some sense because the 40-year age gap between George and his uncle Sam (and according to 1841 add 5 for Ann) means his father was likely a much younger brother of Ann's. I'm saying that the Henry who made the Johnson marriage, if he was the younger brother of Ann by 10 years or so, can't have been Henry the son of William Gibbins and Elizabeth Brewster - because when that Ann was likely born, William 1771 was only about 12 years old. But he could have been a son of Thomas and Elizabeth of Blaston.

There is evidently also some connection with the last Thomas Gibbins and Jane group from Medbourne who have children 1779-1790 including a Thomas 1779, a George (1785) and a Francis (boy, b.4 Dec, bapt 5 Dec 1790). Can't be the same father Thomas because of the overlap, unless Jane as a mother for Francis is a scribal slip for Elizabeth - but that's a very last resort!

  M

[totally leics]

Hi Mercian,

             Do you think it might be possible that Ann was in fact the teenage mother of Henry 1800? I thought baptisms usually followed in a month or so after birth. Plus he was born in Blaston then christened in Medbourne in Nov 1801. Could it be that others in the Gibbins clan i.e William and Elizabeth took him in as their own? This is high conjecture of course and I cannot see any way of proving it, but it would make George Ann's grandson in Thurmaston.   TL

[Mercian]

Haha! Forgive me if I avoid that question, as I am not really in a position to answer it! You can arrange the facts, but try not to stretch them or twist them.

Almost anything is possible, but one must start from whatever is evident, and then say 'I don't really know' until more evidence is forthcoming. You really must get over to Wigston and look at those Ann bonds. They might well give you some concrete clues. The more you prepare yourself by thinking through the various local Gibbinses in IGI, the better equipped you will be to get insights from the records.

Against your adoption theory is the fact that William has already had Thomas in November 1800, who has died 6 weeks later, and then Henry, Sarah, Robert and William all come at regular intervals towards midwinter, suggesting that they are conceived in the spring. The sequence starts with 9 December 1799 as the wedding day of William and Elizabeth - so it does all look as if William and Liz are following their own course of events. And the fact that a name is not in IGI is NO EVIDENCE that such a person did not exist.

Blaston is a strange entity, being distinct from both Hallaton and Medbourne, but having some kind of divided dependency in two halves upon the other two parishes. Both the churches are victorian (St Giles 1870, St Michael 1867-1868), though both possess church plate (?from foregoing churches) which is a good deal older (Pevsner Leic and Rutland 1973 printing). This is something to do with why the Blaston records appear variously in the Medbourne and Hallaton registers.

I think when people put 'of Blaston' in the registers they really mean it, because there are lines at Blaston that are distinct from those having the same name at the other two. I know for instance that the family of William Waddington of Blaston (1711-1783) and his wife Elizabeth (1716-1787) and their children, have tombstones and inscriptions in Medbourne churchyard, which specify that they are of Blaston: and that their line should not be confused with the Waddingtons designating themselves as of Medbourne.

If there are marriages which cross these lines, as there must often or usually have been, its worth considering that marriages often take place in the bride's home church, not the groom's, and that children may often be born in the bride's home village rather than in the current family home - as if, for instance, mother went to stay with her parents while she was giving birth, to have the necessary support.

So - as with Edward Bishop and Elizabeth Wadd/rrington, - the marriage venue doesn't necessarily tell you much about where the groom comes from. (After all, the custom is that the bride's parents pay for the reception, and the custom that the bride's family are the hosts goes back to very ancient times.) And then we know that Dan and Sam and their siblings werre born in Thurmaston. The same with Ann: Sam married her in Medbourne, but she lived in Thurmaston. So the Groom might easily go to his wedding at Medbourne from Hallaton, for instance, as my ancestor Christopher Stevenson did to marry Lucy Waddington in 1815. He married her at Medbourne because that's where her family lived: but once married they lived in Hallaton, which is where his family came from. I think one of their sons was born in Shearsby - not because they lived there, but because there were relatives there. It may be very important that young George once says he is from Horninghold, as this may help to differentiate the household - is that where the Johnsons lived? etc etc etc...

Keep digging!  and best wishes TL, sorry I go on so much  M

[totally leics]

Hi Mercian,

          Thanks, what you say is useful, my branch of the Gibbins family have a long history of passing story/information by word of mouth through the generations. Now much of what I have been told has proved to be true, and I try to be mindful of dealing with facts rather than tradition, but sometimes part of my inheritance is a tendency to look at something and ask "what if?" when I know full well an analytical approach is the one to be employed!! 

           I shall make the time to visit the records office again armed with the facts that so many have kindly helped me to put together and work at this next riddle in a more scientific manner. As you so rightly put it  You can arrange the facts, but try not to stretch them or twist them.
                                                                TL 


 

[Mercian]

Good for you!

It wasn't supposed to be a sermon... trying to make things fit is half the fun of it, isn't it? But the danger is one ends up climbing up the wrong tree: and then there's nothing to do but throw coconuts at the passers-by... I'm just wary because once a wrong connection is published everyone copies it, and like letting a ferret out of a sock in the wrong place, you never get it back.

Keep us posted. M