So after doing quite a bit of digging around I have found out the following about the Jenkenson or Jenkinson family of Freethorpe. I will outline this below. Sadly the original parish registers only survive from 1755 and only some pages of the Archdeacon's transcripts for the period before then survive.
For the 1600s less than 20% of the BT entries survive for the following decades: 5 years of the 1600s, 2 years of the 1620s, 2 years of the 1630s, 4 years of the 1660s and 6 years of the 1670s. You can see the issues this holds for genealogy when there are non for the 1610s, 1640s, 1650s, 1680s and 1690s.
Despite this some wills of the periods are helpful and help unlock the Jenkenson family. It is worth remembering to check surnames on the indexes on both the Norfolk and Suffolk records websites for this area as the two counties were so close together.
From this I have been able to put together the following information on the Jenkensons of Freethorpe, Norfolk and Lound, Suffolk.
The earliest Jenkenson entry in the registers for Freethorpe is the 1625 burial of Elizabeth wife of who appears to be Richard Jenkenson. He could link into the other Jenkenson families of Oulton and Halvergate as they have Richards but this is not sure.
Moving on a few years there are some baptisms and burials in the 1660s and from the wills and other parish records the following can be put together.
George Jenkenson of Freethorpe married Elizabeth Hanne of Freethorpe at St Andrew Norwich on 10 May 1654. We can here assume that George was therefore born before c1633 and from the births of her children Elizabeth was born c1625-1638.
George Jenkenson is known from the 1670 Bishop Transcript page of 1670 to have been a church warden and he signed this record with an symbol that looks like an arrow.
This same signature witnessed the will of Henry Jenkenson a husbandsman of Freethorpe in 1698. This will was proved in 1704 and it would therefore seem probable that Henry was George's brother as George named a son Henry. Henry's will names his daughter Ann Jenkenson (prob m. Thomas Day in 1706 and died 1710) and grandchildren Henry Pitcher (then under 21), Elizabeth Pitcher and Katherine Pitcher.
George Jenkenson and Elizabeth Hanne/Jenkenson have three children named in the surviving BTs for Freethorpe: Francis baptised 1665, Robert baptised in 1670 and Henry buried in 1670. However neither Francis or Robert are named in his will dated 1695/6 so like Henry they two must have died.
George's will dated 10 Feb 1695/6 shows he was a blacksmith and this names his eldest son George Jenkenson, a farmer, and his second son Edmund Jenkenson, a blacksmith. Given George and Elizabeth's marriage date and the order of birth of the sons George Jenkenson was presumably born between c1654-1662 and Edmund Jenkenson between c1655-1663. George's will also names his grandson Robert Harth, a minor in 1695/6, so there must have been a daughter who married and predeceased her father.
George Jenkenson I will can be found online here at familysearch...
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C398-ZZKB?i=312&cat=504379George Jenkenson I was buried in Freethorpe in April 1708 leaving his two sons George II and Edmund alive. His eldest son namesake George Jenkenson II is my ancestor and he moved to Lound in Suffolk. His will and other records help fill in his family line. George Jenkenson II had three wives: Dorothy (d. 1701), Hannah Conold/Carnwell m. 1710 (d.1713) and widow Margaret Wilkinson/Conold m. 1714 (d.1720.)
George II's father's will names his grandson George Jenkenson, so George Jenkenson III, and he is assumed to be a son of George II. However George III died in October 1712 and was buried in Lound. The will of George I in relation to this bequest to his grandson states that George III had a brother and sisters so we can add in at least two more daughters and a son born to George II and his wife.
The registers of Lound show that George II and Dorothy had twin sons Robert and Edmund who were baptised and buried in Lound in January 1697. This was after George I wrote his will so they are not the brother but we know that this unnamed brother in the will of George I must have died as no sons are named in the will of George II.
In fact George Jenkenson II outlived all his children as his daughter Elizabeth, wife of James Panks who she married in Bradwell in 1708, died in 1718. Her unnamed sister or sisters must also have died by then too as no children are named in the will. Therefore the beneficiaries of George II's will were her three children [his grandchildren] Martha Panks (b. 1709), Simon Panks (b. 1710), Margaret Panks (b. 1713) and Elizabeth (1716-1722).
George's brother Edmund Jenkenson died in 1724 and he had a son Francis (baptised 1707) by his wife Martha (d. 1707) and he also had two daughters named in his will, Martha and Wiifred. He later remarried widow Margaret Leeder in 1721 and his will indicates her first husband may actually have been alive at the time of the marriage. It is an interesting part of the story.
And for now that is all I have on the family. I would love to hear from anyone else researching the family.
Kind regards,
Jon
