organ builders

[BelletTiverton]

Hi Justin
I have two ways to attack this problem .
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Method 1
Somebody suggested to me who has a connection with GPE that
George England the Elder may have been born in Stepney
23 June 1713   SAINT DUNSTAN, STEPNEY, LONDON, ENGLAND   John England   Mary   London
Born to John and Mary
The reason he gave was the same John and Mary have a son called John possibly his brother?
Born 11th April 1717  Saint Dunstan , Stepney , London , England
This may well be true 😊
If there were a paper trail to this I would stop 😊
That is my first way to attack the problem
I came here to find someone who had such a trail.
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Method 2
Depending on which years you use on ancestry say 1715 to 1740
You only get about 25 George Englands as the name is so uncommon
The George England born on the 23rd June 1713 is on my list maybe he is the one with a paper trail I would stop.
So me second method is based on my geekiness 😊 Before uni where I read Physics I used to solve all manner of logic problems for fun with my PC , sadly I do not have limitless time now.
Of the 25 for example one of them was born in Bessingham  to Charles and Mary in 1727.  He is another one on my list.
As I said George England is an ucommon name.
In 1749 in Bessingam there is only one George England having children married to Hannah.
So I cross the 1713 George off my list.
This list of 25 , well 24 now 😊
This list has
Has 7 George Englands from Norfork, 2 from York, 4 from London etc etc.
I know I could go through this list and cross off a lot more I may do this time permiting
However when I was at Uni this is just the kind if thing I would of loved to do so I am hoping to attract someone like me with lots of time.
As they could well identify George England the elders birth place etc etc as the original poster mentioned.
So I do not wish to have such a person put off by the fact organ makers are clearly different to organists.
Suppose you were trying to trace a famous scientist who made a significant discovery and had an uncommon name like George England.
If one of his grand children was a maths teacher , it would be perfectly true it would be a totally different type of animal.
However the most common occupation of the possible comtenders is agricultural labourer.
So it is a bit like Bayesian probability.
Of the 25 about 8 will have grandchildren who have very low skilled jobs.
So it would be “more likely” the descedent who was a maths teacher had a famous scientist than an agricultural labourer.
As well as that I think there was probably money to be made making organs.
My ancestor the organist sent his children to Blundells
http://www.blundells.org/
If and off course nobody knows George England the elder had grand children I do not think they would be agricultural labourers.
I think they would be in professions related to music , or else in occupations that require capital to start up.
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Excuse the long response method 2 is the Sherlock Holmes kind of method about eliminating the improbable.
I do realise that George England may not of had children so the whole think would be moot.

Also though the marriage records are clearly true.  Human nature has to be taken account off.
Take the marriage this weekend of our Prince and his bride.
I understand now he has a heart condition and may or may not be able to walk his daughter down the Aisle I also “know” he stage the paparazzi photos for reasons other than making money.
If the truth is unpalatable we would only find out with other evidence and I do want get done for liable here with living people.

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As I said I do not want to put off a Sherlock Holmes genealogist who has time.
I could eliminate the Bessingham George England quickly. There are another 6 Geroge England born in Norfolk in the relevant time period.
In the period 1740 to 1777 there were 29 people born in Norfolk with a father called George England
The rarity of the George Englands name makes the exercise possible.

[BelletTiverton]

About the point you make about your ancestor the son of a fruit seller, I mean something different.
It may well be a random choice as to who is apprenticed.
By being apprenticed it , to my mind anyway ,it makes is more likely his descendants will have a musical profession.
So if you have 25 sets of descendants
One set  from one fruit seller who was apprenticed to GPE
Twenty four form fruit sellers who were not apprentices.

I think the one apprenticed to GPE is likely to have more musical descendants.

[JustinL]

Hello Peter,

I'm getting a bit confused about your main objective. Is it:

1) to establish the origins of George England, b. c1766 Exeter, butcher, d. 1837 Exeter
2) to establish the origins of George England, b. c1718, organ builder, bur. 1775 Clerkenwell
3) to establish a link between the two families

Pursuing objectives 1) and 2) would, of course, address 3) as well. To pursue these objectives, you have to go back to the primary sources, i.e. parish records, wills, apprenticeship records, etc.

You most definitely cannot rely on family trees created in Ancestry, unless they cite all the primary sources. The example you have cited of the England family from Shepton Beauchamp illustrates how fanciful such trees can be. Why would a couple living in SB have 5 children there and 1 on Exeter? These sort of assertions should sound the alarm bells.

Ancestry is not the best source for UK parish records. You need to subscribe to FindMyPast. I quote here from the Devonshire Council website:

Coverage of Devon parish registers online
 
Although many of the Church of England registers of baptism, marriage, banns and burial for Devon parishes are now digitised and most of these digitised register images are now included online on Find My Past, you should be aware of the limitations on what has been placed online.
 
A cut-off date of 1915 has generally been imposed for baptism, banns and marriage entries from Devon Heritage Centre and North Devon Record Office collections, which are digitised and available online on Find My Past, so these entries will only rarely relate to those still living. Also at present, only burial register entries up to 1915 have been made available by Find My Past.
 
A cut-off date of 1912 was applied to Plymouth and West Devon Record Office’s holdings of parish registers, which became available as digital images online on Find My Past several years earlier than ours. 
 
Less than half of the digital images of parish registers which we have supplied so far to Find My Past were launched online in May 2014. For many parishes, only transcripts of baptisms, marriages and burials, which were in any case made available to Find My Past by the Devon Family History Society, and were already online, were made available during the first release in May 2014. 
 
A second release of digital images was made in mid-November 2014, and this greatly increased the availability of Devon parish register images online. North Devon parish registers are now largely included.
 
Despite the release of this second batch of parish registers on November 2014, not all of the parish registers which we believe have been already digitised and supplied to Find My Past appear to have been uploaded yet. 
 
There are a number of other parishes for which all surviving registers have been digitized, but which will always have unavoidable gaps in their online coverage, because of loss, destruction or severe damage to their registers in the past.   
 
Note also, that there are a number of parishes [roughly 10% of Devon parishes] for which permission to digitise was initially refused by the incumbent, and these registers were digitized under alternative arrangements to those which were put in place for the majority of parishes.  These digitized parish registers have now been made available on the members’ area of the Devon Family History Society website.   In order to use this site you must be a member of the Devon Family History Society.  We expect these registers to appear online on Find My Past at a later date.

It appears most likely that George the butcher was one of at least 5 children of:
George England, baptised 1737 in St. George's parish, bur. 1782 St. Olave's parish and
Anne (born Bear), b. c1738, bur. 1820 St. Mary Major (aged 82y)

who married on 9 Nov 1760 St. Mary Major

Returning to the origins of the organ-builder Englands, it is entirely possible that they were not a London family. With the help of apprenticeship records, I was able to establish that one of my London lines originated in Wantage (Berkshire), but a young man had moved to London in the early 18th century to take up his apprenticeship.

Those baptism records from Stepney are intriguing though.

Justin

[BelletTiverton]

Hi Justin

All I know about George England the butcher my ancestor was he was baptised on the 22nd July 1766

In Exeter and one of his sons was an organist born 8th February 1794

He had another son born 6th October 1803 who I believe was a piano tuner in the 1841 census
No organ makers but musical.

Anyways nobody knew when George England was born , I thought.

How do you know it is 1718 .

That would quickly lead to finding a lot more about his birth place etc than is currently known as George England is such a rare name

Peter

[JustinL]

Hi Peter,

On 31 Dec 1775, a George England was buried in the burial ground of St. James, Clerkenwell. He was 57 years old. GE, the organ builder, is generally though to have died in about 1773. The Englands had a close association with Clerkenwell and neighbouring Holborn. GE married Sarah Bridge in that church in 1757.

Justin

[BelletTiverton]

Hi Justin

I agree that a George England dieing in Clerkenwell in 1775 may be the organist George England.

It is the same kind of circumstantial proof that I have come across.

For example I know for my GGG uncle William England lived in Clerkenwell at 11 St John Street
having moved there from Devon.

I have no idea why someone from Devon would move to London and live in Clerkenwell unless there was a family connection.

Peter

[BelletTiverton]

Justin
Like you I distrust the Ancestry trees , not through my own experience but comments made on other heritage sites

These trees ancestry trees agree that a George England married a Ms Bear in 1760 at Saint Mary Major.

They say they had at least 5 children ( They say 6)
Solomon, Samuel then three more the dates as below and finally Giles.

Three of the birth dates are

Dianne England born 9th December 1765
George England 22 June 1766 the Butcher
James England born 1st Jan 1767

So they agree with George England Marrying a woman maiden name Beer

I have copies of the birth certificates of Dianne born 9th December 1765 and James England born 1st January 1767.   It is very hard to make out the name of the mother  It could be Dianne or Anne

So I can prove that George England born 27th June 1766 was not the natural son of Anne Bear.   
Peter

[JustinL]

How can you prove that Anne was not the mother of George born in 1766?

Have you seen the actual baptism register?

The actual Exeter parish records have the following entries for children of George E. and Anne:

George England, bp. 22 Jun 1766 St. George, Exeter (mother not named or perhaps illegible)
Sarah England, bp. 25 Dec 1768 St. Olave
Grace England, bp. 1 Sep 1771 St. Olave, bur. 1815
Richard Beer England, bp. 1774 St. Olave, bur. 1828 St. George
Thomas England, bp. 1777 St. Olave, bur. 1772 St. Olave

Justin

[BelletTiverton]

As far as I know nobody knows who was the mother of George Butcher I mentioned I have read ancestry trees are not always accurate.   I mentioned it once or twice I think.

The ancestry ones  say he is the son of George from Shepton Beauchamp.

I have seen the birth certificates of the siblings of the George England from Shepton Beauchamp .

They would prove he was not the natural son of the wife of George from Shepton Beauchamp as I mentioned I do not necessarily these trees though


I did not know there was another George England who had children born near St George the Martyr in Exeter.


However though I have not seen the actual birth certificate of George butcher  born at St George the Martyr, I did not know it could be seen as it is just a transcript without a mothers name shown?