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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: wildwitch on Monday 10 April 17 18:54 BST (UK)
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Hi
I am currently researching an ancestor who was a member of the landed gentry (esquire). He inherited his impoverished estates at the age of 36 in 1748 from his parents, when he was still unmarried. Indeed it seems he never married at all. In 1756 his son (and heir) was born, but the baptism has not yet been found. His only other child, a daughter was born in 1764. Her baptism clearly shows her to be illegitimate, she was recorded as his daughter and the mother had a completely different surname and there is no mention of wife. It appears he had a mistress by this stage. Letters have survivd that later show that she must indeed have been the mother of both of his children. He made his will in 1776 and refers to her not as his wife (indeed he never mentioned a wife) but as Mrs and by the name previously recorded at the daughters baptism and he adds the comment 'To Mrs...who currently lives and resides with me' The woman in question died in 1788 and was buried as his wife, even though there is no trace of any marriage. Indeed a letter from the time period shows that she was well respected amongst his friends and that her daughter nursed her. He died in 1789 and left his estate to his son and made a substantial bequest (£10000) to his daughter too. Now my question really is how does a member of the gentry get away with having a mistress and then manages to leave the estate to his illegitimate children? I thought as illegitimate children they would have had no right to inherit? I am assuming the son was baptised in private somewhere so that his illegitimacy was more difficult to prove? How would they have been seen within society and would he have been able to say make her out as his wife without them being married? I', assuming the Mrs suggests that she was already married and I am assuming she was from a lower social class. I am also wondering whether he deliberately didn't marry her because he hoped to do better still since his estate was impoverished.
I am a bit lost with this, any suggestions would be appreciated
thank you
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Surely if the child children are mentioned in a will they will inherit regardless of legitimacy whatever class they may be
Louisa Maud
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I can't really comment on the general scenario and how acceptable it might have been for a man in his position to live with a woman who wasn't his wife, but there are a couple of things I can comment on:
First, I think the title Mrs was sometimes used for unmarried women, so you might not be able to read too much into this.
Second, the question about illegitmacy and inheritance only applies when someone doesn't leave a will. If there's a valid will which names illegitimate children, they will inherit. (Louisa Maud said this too while I was typing.) In fact if there were illegitimate children, the only way they could inherit was if they were explicitly named in a will.
Incidentally, if the woman he was living with wasn't his wife, there's a possibility she might have left a will too.
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I don't think his estate was impoverished at all, to leave £10000 to his daughter would have been a huge amount back then, let alone whatever his son inherited. I have been looking at umpteen wills and deeds lately and that amount would have been significant.
Could they have been RC? Might explain why you haven't found a marriage.
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How would they have been seen within society and would he have been able to say make her out as his wife without them being married? ...... Mrs suggests that she was already married ..... I am assuming she was from a lower social class.
The gentleman would have been tolerated by society, but the woman would have been shunned. (The same double standard goes on today: "He's a bit of a lad", "she's a sl*t"). The only way I think they could have successfully pretended to be married would be to have moved to a new area where they were not known (but even then, gossip could have caught up with them).
Mrs is the abbreviation for Mistress, used to address a married woman, but often also for some senior servants such as a cook or housekeeper, whether they were married or not.
The morality of the time was brilliantly shown by W M Thackeray in "Vanity Fair" - great novel which has been made into film and TV programmes.
Philip
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As has already been suggested, 'Mrs' was often given as a courtesy title to senior servants such as cooks and house-keepers, or unmarried women of a 'certain age'. Of course, it is possible that the mother of the children was already married, which would account for the lack of a marriage between her and her partner. The situation would suggest that she was from a lower class than him, but that he loved her and that she was accepted within his social circle, from what you say. I suppose as the relationship was an acknowledged one, members of his social circle would have accepted her. Regardless of the social mores of the time, I am sure it was not unusual for such relationships to be accepted.
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In Scotland there is a difference between heritable & moveable property, the former went to the legitimate heir & couldn't be willed. There would have been no shortage of claimants & their lawyers to contest a suspected illegitimate heir.
Skoosh.
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Thank you so much for all the great replies. The family indeed were in financial trouble. There are several letters surviving to that effect. He inherited a good £10000 in debts from his parents and his income was around £3000. The family mansion fell into ruin and the family lived on a farm before they could rebuild their fortunes. there were land sales too. The son was expected to bring in an heiress as the letters suggested ideally to wipe out the debts and bring in his sisters dowry. There is an extensive letter collection to that effect. The story does though get better...the son refused to marry where his father wanted him to and fell for a local Esq daughter who only had £5000 dowry. The father prohibited the marriage based on her lack of fortune and his dislike of her father, basically telling the son that he was responsible for ensuring not only his sisters future but also to improve the living conditions of the family. The whole lot was a big mess. The £10000 dowry was suggested by a rich relative, who seems to have had a lot of influence on the family. Indeed there is a high level of suspicion that the son stuck with his love and eventually had an illegitimate child with her, before both were rapidly married off at pretty much the same time. The son later made a bequest to this child in his will. The child in question appears to have been born just before they were both married off (to different partners), literally weeks before his father died.
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Ah yes I had been wondering whether she may have been the housekeeper or a senior servant, that is precisely where my suspicion lies.
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Did your esquire leave all his land and houses to his son? If he did that meant there was no entail on the property. If an estate is entailed it would normally be inherited by the nearest legitimate male heir. (Think Mr Collins in "Pride & Prejudice" or the Eliot family in " Persuasion".)
I've seen "Mrs" as a title for an unmarried daughter of landed gentry (she was grand-daughter of an earl). She was a young woman at the time and married later. She was "Mrs" in a parish register when she was godmother. Her brother was godfather to several children of the same family. At first I assumed them to have been husband & wife. It was the same era as your family.
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I see that Maiden Stone has touched upon the very subject I wanted too address too :)
I too have come over a lot of unmarried Mrs.'s lately!
My contribution to the subject is that Mrs. was an abbreviation for Mistress, and until the late 1700s/early 1800s - that is to say, some time between the American Revolutionary War and Jane Austen, this was the title for all women, unmarried or married.
The differentiation between Miss and Missus (Mrs.) came later on.
Anne Boleyn would have been mistress Boleyn - That does not mean that she was married or widowed when she caught the eye of Henry VIII :)
Further, what I have found, is that the abbreviation of Mrs. in front of woman's name means the same thing as Mr. in front of a man's - it is a mark of higher social status.
It is thus a sign of social status rather than marital status.
Until some time late in the 1700's/early 1800's.
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Ah that is very interesting thank you. I am currently assuming that she was of a lower social class to him. I just cannot see her being his mistress and being from the same social background. Mind here is another interesting question: Their son was in love with the daughter of a neighbouring Esq. but they didn't receive permission to marry. They were certainly involved in secret for many years (surviving letters) and I have a feeling they had an illegitimate child together. Does anybody know how such a situation would have been handled if marriage was not possible?
As far as the entail is concerned: the estate owner did have a first cousin, who was still alive when the will was made. I am assuming that by making a will he would though have been able to leave the estate to his illegitimate son? I am not sure if I understand the concept of an Entail. The family didn't have a title and were landed gentry. The complete estate was left to the son, who I am certain was illegitimate.
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Just to play devil's advocate: She could have indeed have been of similar status to his, and yet found herself in an unfortunate situation.
If she for instance were an impoverished clergyman's daughter, she would have been entitled to a Mrs. in front of her name (this was of course not an official system), but she still would not have had anything to offer a heavily indebted man who could have been holding out hope for a rich heiress, as you suggest.
She could very well have been a gentleman's daughter, and still penniless. See Miss Bates in Emma, for instance.
The two of them could still have had a relationship of course, leading to scandal, which would have been a certainty with the first child.
Then, once she was 'ruined', staying with her original lover might have been her best bet, rather than being passed around to a new protector, and with time, probably a whole set of them ...
"Living under the protection of" was the polite euphemism.
None of this however explains the absence of a deathbed wedding, thus consolidating her status as his widow, and legitimizing his children after the fact, as it were, as he was making them his heirs anyway.
Alternatively he or she *could* have already been married to someone else, thus preventing the two of them from marrying.
The fact that his friends accepted her, as you say, suggests that she was a woman from a certain class.
She might very well have been brought up as a gentlewoman.
Fine penmanship, along with fancy sewing and other handwork, music, drawing, French, dancing, and (in the 18th century, not so much the 19th) dessert cookery - knowing a few cake receipts* by heart, were the accomplishments that marked a lady. Not all ladies possessed all these accomplishments. Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that Mr. Darcy (and Miss Bingley) expected more.
How accepted was she? For such a situation to be even halfway accepted, one should think his acquaintance a rowdy set :)
*Receipt is the word generally used in the 18th and early 19th centuries instead of recipe. Recipe began to be used in the mid-18th century and gradually overtook receipt as the common word for a cooking formula.
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Wildwitch see Wikipedia articles "Fee tail" ( same as entail) and "Fee simple" for explanations.
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Yes she (Mary) really is a mystery. Many letters have survived and he never mentions her in any of them! His children both refer to her as mother in their letters. None of her letters though survives so we don't know whether she was literate! One of these surviving letters and his will clearly indicate that the two lived together though together with their two children! In 1788 we have the only evidence that she appears to have been accepted by his friends: she was in poor health and died shortly later. At this stage she was travelling with her daughter for her health. A letter from that time period exists that was sent to her daughter from a man named James Wright from Bushy Park (I have no idea who he was or what his relationship etc was to the family and would be grateful if anybody knows who he was). He wrote: 'I hold myself much obliged to me in writing the progress of your journey and more so as to speak favourably of your mothers health. I need not tell you I have known her long & with Reason have ever had a great Regard for her. I should be very sorry to hear that the evening of a life spent in the worthy Endeavours of promoting the Happiness of not only her own Family, but all within her Circle, should moulder away in constant pain with the addition of seeing all her friends in vain exerting themselves to afford some relief where none can be effectual.....' He also wrote that he was 30 years older than the daughter, which means he would have been roughly the same age as our now dying woman. He also wrote that he met and socialised with the two women recently in London. Mary eventually died in London and was recorded in the gentleman's mag and at burial as his wife, but clearly his will states otherwise. We also have other letters stating that she was to travel to London with her partner and children, so she clearly was not hidden away somewhere!
My first thought was that the two made themselves out as a married couple whilst in truth they didn't marry, probably because he was hoping to still do better in view of his poor finances. My thought is: he loved her, but couldn't fully commit to her. I have found absolutely no trace of any marriage record, not even close to her death. I am really not sure what to make of this mess of a situation. Their children mixed with decent society (Earls etc) and went to boarding school/university.
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This may also explain why his cousin suggested the grand sum of £10000 as a dowry for the daughter. The father clearly wasn't this wealthy and this sum was roughly it seems the equivalent of his rental income for 3 years. If indeed the daughter was the illegitimate child of two people from a similar gentry background then she would have had to have been accomplished and needed a decent dowry to attract a decent suitor
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My thought is: he loved her, but couldn't fully commit to her.
Yes. Honestly, this is my instinct as well. What is important to remember is that the Georgians were ... peculiar. It is always an age that have been a bit alien to me, while I understand the Victorians very well.
Jane Austen's time also seems more well-ordered to me, though there were plenty of craziness then as well *g* See for instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley) See his wives too :) It just gets wilder and wilder!
What I mean with peculiar, is that they seem to have behaved in ways that were very illogical and difficult for us to understand. I don't have the same problem with Tudor times, for instance, for all that their motives were cutthroat, they are not difficult to understand.
One thing I have been thinking about your ancestor, and that you suggested yourself, is that maybe he did not think that Mary was quite good enough for him? Not that she was the housekeeper or a servant (I am still dubious about that), but she may have been illegitimate herself or in some other way "beneath" him ? Maybe he was still bitter that the grand match he had envisioned for himself did not materialise?
Or that he had somehow gotten attached to the idea of remaining a bachelor? This is what I mean by the Georgians being peculiar. They would sometimes have these idées fixe that seem to go against all common sense. Not that that is exclusive to those times, but it seems more predominant to the Georgians somehow :)
So I agree. The letter seems to build up under the idea that Mary was a gentlewoman. I would think that she would have had an easier time to be accepted among people her own age, yes, and who lived perhaps in similar arrangements. So they could well have entertained and have had their set of friends. (See the link above for what I mean. The more people behaving in a certain way, the easier it is to be accepted. At least amongst themselves)
And she could have been kind and lovely, and have been appreciated for that, or she could have been charming and frivolous and been appreciated for that. *g*
Before I move on to the next subject, I wanted to address your ancestor's economic difficulties. They seem somewhat peculiar. A debt of £10 000 was of course enormous. (Do you know how these debts were incurred? Gambling, perhaps? A popular Georgian pasttime. Absolutely ruinous of course.) But an income of £3 000 wasn't bad, either. Of course, we do not know of the interests and how much his income was tied up in expenses he couldn't avoid, but if he lived frugally on £2 000 or even £1 500 a year he should have been able to discharge his debts in ten years or less. Kind of like if you had a mortgage of £1 000 000 but an income of £300 000 a year.
And to put things in context, Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice lives well on £2 000 a year with a wife and five children. I even wondered if that was why your ancestor waited with getting married, because a bachelor would have of course been able to live much more inexpensively than a married man with family.
This may also explain why his cousin suggested the grand sum of £10000 as a dowry for the daughter. The father clearly wasn't this wealthy and this sum was roughly it seems the equivalent of his rental income for 3 years. If indeed the daughter was the illegitimate child of two people from a similar gentry background then she would have had to have been accomplished and needed a decent dowry to attract a decent suitor
Yes, i think this is a sound assumption. Illegitimacy was serious business. It remained so even into our own time. My mother remembers a child that was born out of wedlock in 1970, and how incredibly shameful that was, because you were supposed to be married. "And then a few years later, that suddenly wasn't so anymore!"
Shakespeare reflects the prejudice in King Lear (different versions of the play written between 1605 and 1623):
EDMUND [an illegitimate son]: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
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In Jane Austen's Emma (1815), we have Harriet Smith. (Natural daughter was the polite term for illegitimate.)
'Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her.
She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.
She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging'
So it was clearly not a hindrance to being admitted into society in Jane Austen's time. However, marriage was another matter entirely...
'“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well. The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out upon her extreme good luck. Even your satisfaction I made sure of. It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match.’”
“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend! Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.—The sphere in which she moves is much above his.—It would be a degradation.”
“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”
“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is brought up.—There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a gentleman—and a gentleman of fortune.—Her allowance is very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort.—That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me; that she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will deny.—She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”
[...]
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[...]
“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!—Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to—Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!—No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received—”
[...]
Harriet’s parentage became known. She proved to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to have always wished for concealment.—Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!—It was likely to be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley—or for the Churchills—or even for Mr. Elton!—The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.'
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Oh this is all very exciting indeed!
I have just dug out the letter that tells me the financial figures. There are many letters that tell me how the family lived. His father owned a small rural estate in the north east and married an heiress to a local estate, thus combining these estates. The old manor house in the father's estate was pulled down and the family lived in the grand manor house on mums estate, which was only built in around 1700 (or thereabouts)! Once he came into his inheritance he initially also lived at this grand manor house. Within 2-3 decades though they were living on what they referred to as a 'farm' on his father's estate (him, mistress and children). The grand manor house increasingly fell into disrepair and eventually was a complete ruin by around 1840. The family never returned there to live. The money debate first came about when it came to the marriage of the son, who was expected to marry well and it materialised that much of it was to do with a new manor house that the family was trying to (and later did) build. The building was completed in around 1790.
In the early 1780s the son had fallen in love and wanted to marry an esquires daughter with a dowry of £5000. The father though objected firstly because the money was insufficient and secondly (although this is only hinted at) because he disliked her father and this dislike seems to have run deep (they were neighbours). The whole lot went to the full extent that the couple continued certainly to meet in secret for at least another few years and I am fairly certain that they went on to have an illegitimate child, because the son did have an illegitimate daughter born around the time where both of them suddenly married other people. She by this stage was in her late 20s!!! and He in his 30s! For all of these years his dad had been in poor health, so I feel they tried to bide their time and consequences occurred. Indeed after all this he married a woman worth only £5000 + 500 for clothes and jewels!
Anyway in the early 1780s the father explained his financial situation to his cousin, who was encouraging the above match and in whom the son had confided: 'He has often updated a saying of yours that no one should marry for Money or Liking singly, but both should have a share I wished him to act upon it how far he has done so I know not, but that you may judge. I will beg leave to refresh your memory with a short abstract of my property which from the Wooll business is much hurt: is as at present as under
My rental income greatly £3000 (*in fact it could looking now even read 3800!!)
The old A... mortgage (*A=his mother's family) with more borrowed by my father & mother jointly on B... (*his mothers estate) £9200
You thought I ought not give C (*=his daughter) less than £10000
===£19200
Still no place to live at & what that will cost to be made as he would Wish let him consider for he has that about it '
We know from other letters that they at this stage lived on a farm. For such a family the whole idea of entertaining and what their neighbours thought must have been quite the deal. I get a feeling that he wasn't a great spender. We also know that he didn't give his son an allowance. His son had to come to him for money and at one stage the son wrote to a friend that he couldn't afford to go on a certain trip and he didn't want to burden his father by allowing him to know that he had run out of money. The son we know spent around £600/year in the late 1770s whilst he had not yet come into his inheritance. Oddly the son also went to Cambridge, but failed to gain a degree, so was sent on grand tour. There are letters to suggest how he wanted to come home quoting his reasons as partly being because he felt he was wasting money the family didn't have i.e. whilst being in France: having to buy and wear clothes without which he wouldn't be received, which he would never be able to wear at home again without looking ridiculous. University and a grand tour would have though been important I believe to get him recognised into the right sort of society as the illegitimate son of a family who had such financial difficulties and no proper home. This sort of background clearly was not exactly going to attract a rich heiress. However having such an education/trip would have brought him into contact with the right sort of society where he may have met such a woman. The backwater in which the family lived certainly did not have as many prospects here. There were probably not that many rich heiresses running around the local assembly rooms. Also such an education may help him gain a good position. They somehow I believe had to get their illegitimate children recognised and 'accepted.'
So we can tell I feel that he must have inherited quite some debt, if £9200 was still left 30+ years after he inherited the debt. His posh house fell into ruin and they lived on a farm. He kept his son on a tight financial reign so to speak, whilst trying to also finance things that would enable his children to have a great future. The daughter also went to boarding school. There is little evidence to tell us how much of a social life he had and overall the feeling is that he mainly stayed on his estates or visited family/friends. He doesn't appear to have been the wild London socialite or the heavy gambler.
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How curious indeed!
Just a small correction: £600 was actually quite an enourmous sum a year to live on for an unmarried man who had not yet come into his inheritance!
Married men of the gentility with entire families to support were often expected to survive on much less.
In Sense and Sensibility, Edward Ferrars, who is then to marry Lucy Steele, is offered a living of and expected to live on about £200 a year — £250 at the utmost. And he is considered lucky to have it. Later, when he marries Elinor Dashwood instead, his mother relents and lets him have £10 000 as his share of the inheritance. Elinor herself has £3 000. Wisely invested this would give a yearly income of between £520-£650 by itself. (Jane Austen herself is a bit unclear here, as she always talks about 4 percent interest, but seems to count £50 yearly interest for every £1000.) Leaving the Ferrars to live on anything between £720, £770, £850 and £900 at the very most.
"With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them, they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor, as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton church early in the autumn.
The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;—could chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep. Mrs. Jennings's prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really believed, one of the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better pasturage for their cows."
(An explanation for the word living: Mr. Edward Ferrars had a university degree, which made eligible to take holy orders, that is to say, become a clergyman. A living was the position of a clergyman in a parish. This living could belong to the owner as an estate to give out as a favour, to a younger son, or in exchange for money (but only before the current holder of the living died!) This right was called advowson - (Thank you so much to Bookbox for teaching me that word! - I have always wondered what the right itself was called. I love this site) )
How sad for the young couple that they did not hold out for a few months more! I do not believe in separating young people who care very much for one another, though I can understand not standing neighbours, lololol :)
Yes, then the debts must indeed have been staggering!!! My money is on gambling (note the use of irony in my choice of words here ;) ) on either his parents or their ancestors/relatives part. I can't think of anything else that could have drummed up such an enourmous debt in such a relatively short time (I assume) with nothing to show for it.
Of course, other expenses of the times could be ruinous, clothes, carriages, jewellery, plate, furniture ... But to again use an example: If you or I had indulged ourselves of everything our hearts could possibly desire moneywise, would we even then have incurred debts of such a nature? That our grandchildren even with an enormous income would still be struggling to pay them off 30 years later? I think not. While someone addicted to gambling even today could easily build up debts that amounted to £10 000 000 in less than a decade ...
But the simplest solution to make his illegitimate children acceptable to good society would have been to marry their mother! I trust you have searched for a possible earlier marriage for Mary? Or a possible earlier marriage for the father?
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Also, a historical example of illegitimacy in these times.
Banastre Tarleton, the inspiration for Colonel Tavington in the movie The Patriot:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/05/Banastre-Tarleton-by-Joshua-Reynolds.jpg/800px-Banastre-Tarleton-by-Joshua-Reynolds.jpg)
Had for a long time a relationship with this lady, Mary Robinson, without being married to her:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Gainsborough_Mary-Robinson.jpg/440px-Gainsborough_Mary-Robinson.jpg)
You can read all about that here:
https://lifetakeslemons.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/ban-and-mary-a-lovers-wager/ (https://lifetakeslemons.wordpress.com/2012/01/31/ban-and-mary-a-lovers-wager/)
Once that relationship was over, Banastre Tarleton married Susan Priscilla Bertie, the illegitimate daugther of the Duke of Ancaster.
I quote freely from a now defunct website, which can still be found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060709201553/http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/friends/bertie.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20060709201553/http://home.golden.net/~marg/bansite/friends/bertie.html)
'Susan Priscilla Bertie (Tarleton)
(1778 - 1864)
One of Ban Tarleton's many friends during the occupation of Philadelphia was Robert Bertie, a wealthy young aristocrat who was a couple of years his junior. Early in 1778, Bertie made a trip to England to attend his severely ill father, the Duke of Ancaster. He found time while he was home to become involved with a woman named Rebecca Krudener, and when he returned to America after his father's death, she was expecting his child. Robert seems to have been genuinely attached to Rebecca, so perhaps he mentioned his impending fatherhood to Banastre. If he did, neither of them could have had the least suspicion that some twenty years later Robert's love child, Susan Priscilla, would become Mrs. Banastre Tarleton.
After only a short stay in America, Robert returned to England. He died soon afterwards, possibly of a combination of heat stroke and excessive drinking. He was twenty-two. In his will he left Susan a comfortable inheritance and the legal right to his name. His mother, the dowager Duchess of Ancaster, persuaded Rebecca to allow her to adopt Susan Priscilla. I haven't been able to track down when or under what circumstances Susan entered the custody of her paternal grandmother, but in November 1782, when she was four years old, her mother married a man named William Walker in Saint James, Westminster, London. Possibly Mr. Walker did not welcome the presence of a child to remind him of his wife's past as a nobleman's mistress.
In her grandmother's care, the little girl was raised within one of England's most powerful and influential families. By the time she was twenty, Susan was variously described as well-educated, accomplished in music, eccentric, spoiled, intelligent and quite imperious. She liked to ride unruly horses, she kept numerous pets, and while she loved the mad whirl of London society, she did not approve of vices such as heavy drinking and gambling.
She was, as Holley once so aptly phrased it, "the handful Fate had bestowed on an aging stud muffin."
Susan and Banastre met in 1798 when he was attending a house party at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the country seat of Lord Cholmondeley, who was Susan's uncle by marriage. Susan was being widely courted at the time, by a circle of admirers that included Beau Brummell (less than seriously), and (quite seriously) the Duke of Bedford. Ban was old enough to be her father -- in fact, he was two years older than her father -- and in the throws of a midlife crisis. His long relationship with Mary Robinson had recently come to an end, he was trying to kick his chronic gambling habit, and he was questioning his political alliances. He was, to put it mildly, no longer having a good time with the riotous lifestyle he'd been living for the past twenty years.
They were as unlikely a couple as could be found, but, gray-haired or not, Ban had lost none of his infinite charm. Virtually penniless, and in the face of a circle of rivals which included a wealthy and powerful duke, he courted Susan and won her hand in less than a week. In fact, the Sun newspaper gossiped, "In three days the match was settled, and the lady was content to resign all the luxuries of the fashionable life to attend her military husband abroad on his professional duties."
A few days later, Viscount Palmerston commented on both the marriage and Tarleton's foreign posting in a letter to his wife:
Our troops are going as you know to Portugal....Tarleton is to command the Cavalry, but before he goes he is to marry Miss Bertie, a daughter of the late Duke of Ancaster whom we saw I believe with Lady Willoughby. She has £12,000. The Duke of Bedford seemed to like her very much but she has taken Tarleton. I suppose his wooing was like Othello's.
Lady Palmerston sent him an unimpressed reply: "How could Miss Bertie wed Othello when she appeared the object of so fair a Duke's admiration. I, certainly much as I love seeing new countries, had rather marry the Duke of Bedford with all his faults and stay at home rather than General Tarleton with all his virtues and go to Lisbon."'
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'Susan, obviously, was of a different opinion. On December 17, 1798 -- less than three months after they were first introduced -- she and Banastre married. The following day, The Times carried this description of the event:
Last night at eight o'clock was married by special licence, Major General Tarleton to Miss Bertie, niece to Lady Willoughby. A grand entertainment was given on the occasion by Lord Gwydir, at his house at Whitehall, where the ceremony was performed after dinner by the Rev. Mr. Western of Canterbury. His Lordship officiated as father: the Bridesmaids were Miss Walls, Miss Lisle, Miss Clitheroe, and Miss Seymour. At ten o'clock the new married pair left town for Langley.
Miss Bertie, is a natural daughter of one of the branches of the House of Ancaster. She has a fortune of about 12,000l. and is a very accomplished Lady. She is to accompany the General abroad.
In their reports on the wedding, a few newspapers added a dig at Susan's parentage which Bass believed was a final, vindictive barb from the "forsaken" Mary Robinson, who at the time was editor of the poetry column in the Morning Post. Other papers, such as Bell's Weekly Messenger, picked up on the gossip: "The Miss Bertie, whom General Tarleton has espoused, is a natural daughter of his late friend, the young Duke of Ancaster. Mrs. Tarleton's maiden name is Kreudorer [s.b. Krudener], and not Bertie. The natural relationship which she bears to the family of Ancaster induced many to suppose that she bore the name of that Noble house. Mrs. Tarleton is reckoned one of the most beautiful young women within the circle of fashion."
Susan's dowry is mentioned in nearly all of the newspaper accounts of their wedding. (Variously reported anywhere from £12,000 to £20,000.) No doubt it enhanced her initial attraction for Tarleton, but it is somewhat misleading. Invested wisely -- and Susan seems to have possessed considerably more financial wisdom than her new husband -- it represented an income of roughly £600 a year. That amount would provide a very comfortable lifestyle, but not a lavish one. Susan was not fabulously rich. She was, however, sensible.
Despite a few rough years near its beginning, marred by Banastre's acknowledgment of an illegitimate daughter, their thirty-five year marriage seems to have been happy. By November, 1803, Lady Harriet Cavendish gossiped to her sister that, "General and Mrs. Tarleton are thought too conjugal, as they always sit on the same chair and eat out of the same plate." When she met Susan soon afterward at the fashionable spa at Bath she gushed to her sister,
But my adoration at present is dear little Mrs. Tarleton. She is perfectly delightful and so kind to me that that alone would almost make me love her. I was with her yesterday from 2 till 5, and she is so entertaining, merry and goodhumoured that it seemed like 10 minutes. I was quite ashamed coming home loaded with presents, for whatever I looked at, she gave me and she lent me the most beautiful books to read. It is delightful to have her too at the stupid rooms and I am quite delighted with her being here. The only flaw in her character is her great admiration of Miss Seymour, but that I am doomed to meet with. She [Mrs. Tarleton] is rather pretty, I think, but so original, so remplie de talents, so fond of her husband, so good and so giddy.
A few weeks later, she told another friend that Susan "is a delightful person and I do not know which to admire most, her good or her brilliant qualities. She has certainly a greater share of both than generally falls to the lot of mortals, and what is perhaps more uncommon, a perfect command over them. That is she never gives you too much or too little of them and employs her talents as the embellishments, and not the object of her existence. Do not you think this requires sense and judgement and deserves admiration?"
Susan seems to have also turned that sense and good judgment to weaning Banastre away from both the worst of his vices -- which no doubt helped his life expectancy, to say nothing of his finances -- and his radical politics. She accompanied him to Portugal, Ireland and a parade of different army posts in England until he finally retired. Eventually, they settled down in a country house which still stands in the village of Leintwardine, Herefordshire.
In Leintwardine, they lived out the remainder of Banastre's life in bucolic tranquility. During those years, Ban kept a personal journal filled with sketches and scraps of poetry. One short poem expresses both his affection and his awareness of the effect Susan had on his life:
"To Lady Tarleton
By ambition tormented, by fortune sore crossed
Without little Su, I had paradise lost
Though deep sunk in debt, yet my fame was unstained
And winning Sweet Susan, I had paradise gained" B.T.'
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'As she aged, Susan's merriness and love for society devolved into a Victorian soberness which was darkened by religious fanaticism. Writing just after 1900, A.G. Bradley mentions a local tradition that "they lived very quietly and did not mix with the neighboring country families. This may have been due to failing health or age infirmities. But a further tradition exists of Lady Tarleton not having been 'persona grata.' Though hardly the case then in London society, even a duke's left-handed offspring might have been looked at askance in the provinces." If there is any truth to that legend, it may explain why Susan left Leintwardine after Banastre's death to live elsewhere. She outlived her husband by more than thirty years, never remarried, and is said to have been remembered by the younger members of his family as a beloved but eccentric old lady.
She died on August 13th, 1864, aged eighty-seven, in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Her will begins with the admonition, "I direct that my funeral shall be private and as economically conducted as decency will admit and I direct that under no circumstances shall...my Executors expend theron a larger sum than one hundred pounds," which supports hints that in later life she developed an excessive frugality, unrelated to her comfortable financial circumstances. The will goes on for several pages, suggesting that her widowhood was far from lonely. She left sizeable bequests to one Chevalier Franscisco d'Orhando de la Banda of Berne Switzerland and his three children, as well as to a number of others -- presumably friends or neighbors -- in addition to recognizable members of her family and Banastre's.
An interesting aside to finish up: Whatever Susan may have felt about her husband's ex-mistress, Mary Robinson, it would seem she became friends with Mary's daughter, Mary (or Maria) Elizabeth. In 1804, Mary Elizabeth published an anthology entitled The Wild Wreath, which contained poems by her mother, Coleridge, Monk Lewis and several others. What makes this especially interesting is that the engravings for the book are based on drawings by "Mrs. B. Tarleton."'
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I have hunted high and low and cannot find anything even up to her death. Indeed in 1776, 12 years before her death she was still referred to by her actual name in his will. Even if they had married later though their children would have remained illegitimate. The only way I recon they could have moved decently in society is through a decent dowry (£10000) and by having the right education (Uni/grand tour) and then having the ready cash to go to the right places and meet the right people (£600 in 1779). The son was after all expected to bring in a rich bride to wipe the families problems out. The £600 and all that education would have been an investment towards this. The son married a London socialite whom's dowry was no higher really than that of the woman he had hoped to marry in the first place. His wife though was used to the high life and spent her life spending money (fancy clothes, friends with royalty, time in London, parties etc). He also went on to enjoy the high life and had probably got used to it as a young man. He eventually found himself in some serious financial difficulty and had to sell off property. At the time of his death in 1815 his income was £4000/annum, so quite the sum, but he described how he was struggling to provide for his family with this!
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I did not mean a marriage between Mary and the father :) I meant a marriage between one of them and somebody else.
That would have prevented Mary and the father from marrying. A previous spouse was a very common reason for being unable to marry the one you wanted ...
How curious. Stopping that marriage seems to have been a bad decision over all. Rather than sending his son on a grand tour and to university he ought to have taught him some common sense. But then again he does not seem to have been over-encumbered with that himself ::)
Have you found Mary's Christening? That could give us the answer to if her full name was indeed her maiden name.
No, if Mary and the father had married, at any point in their relationship, even at his deathbed, this would have legitimized the children. The church and the law gave parents this chance to set things to right.
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Oh how very interesting. They really did get about in those days.
My Mary really could have been anybody then really. It seems others have hit a brick wall with her as well the published pedigree records her as his 'other half' but records her as daughter of ...(blank) and has no record of her birth or their marriage either. She must though clearly have come from a sensible enough background though. I can't see her as having been rich or coming from a wealthy family, otherwise he would have gotten on with marrying her. Indeed though it may be right that he had gotten used to being a bachelor, since he was 42 when his first child was born. I feel strongly that they never married, but that all efforts were made to 'fudge over' the fact that their children were illegitimate children of a man with serious debts. I feel this was done by spending a lot of money on their prospects. the sheer fact that his wealthy first cousin (and closest surviving relative) not only suggested the the for him pretty stupendous dowry, but also the financially significant grand tour suggests to me that there was some sort of stigma here. There is also no evidence to suggest that the son had a sponsor on his grand tour. My other nosey though would be why he was at Cambridge for 3-4 years without gaining a degree. Did he get up to something that got him expelled, in which case how does one find out? the Cambridge alumni provides no info here.
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The Georgians were crazy, yo.
I think all of your conclusions seem very sound.
Honestly, he sounds as if just the sort of young man who would have been expelled from Cambridge ::)
He could have failed his exams, gotten bored, been embroiled in some sort of scandal as you suggest ... Sadly I do not know how to find out any of this with certainty, so I pass that ball over to someone else :)
But then again him getting a degree may not have necessary unless he was planning to actually use it for something ... Some profession.
Cambridge may just have been a place to render polish and make connections. *shrugs*
If you wanted to post Mary's full name here (and she dies in 1788, yes?) and where in the country she lived, or send me a direct message, we, or alternatively just I, could take a stab at it.
You needn't post the main family details, just Mary's.
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I have been unable to find a marriage for him full stop and he had a very unusual name and he mentions no wife in his will (although such a wife could have been dead by then). Mary's full name was very common, so anything is possible sadly. I have no clue who she was, so a baptism for her will be impossible to find. Now here is where I hit a wall again: Her surname was White! We have the previously mentioned letter by James Wright of Bushy Park in 1788. She is always though referred to as White, but could very well have been a Wright. I would love to know who this James was!! Indeed he may only have visited Bushy Park and could have completely have been her relative! The estate in the 1900s eventually went to the Wright family, who it is said were related to our/this family. Now here is the problem I cannot tell how they were related and the connection I feel lies with this generation i.e. White=Wright (no standardised spelling)! The Wright's who inherited the estate in the 1900s were from Anston Hall Sheffield, but I haven't managed to link them up to my family. I recon Mary was born between 1720-40, simply by looking at when she had children, so if anybody can connect such a Mary White/Wright to the family from Anston hall and even better find the James into the bargain I would be ecstatic.
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I am completely lost :-\
Hi
I am currently researching an ancestor who was a member of the landed gentry (esquire). He inherited his impoverished estates at the age of 36 in 1748 from his parents, when he was still unmarried. Indeed it seems he never married at all.
He may have married but the record has not survived
In 1756 his son (and heir) was born, but the baptism has not yet been found. His only other child, a daughter was born in 1764. Her baptism clearly shows her to be illegitimate, she was recorded as his daughter and the mother had a completely different surname and there is no mention of wife.
Sometimes in the register, the mothers maiden name is recorded. I have seen two instances of this in my tree in Yorkshire at the same time period. They were married but the mothers forename and maiden name was recorded, alongside the fathers, but not in the married name.
Does the baptism actually state in words that the child is illegitimate?
It appears he had a mistress by this stage. Letters have survivd that later show that she must indeed have been the mother of both of his children. He made his will in 1776 and refers to her not as his wife (indeed he never mentioned a wife) but as Mrs and by the name previously recorded at the daughters baptism and he adds the comment 'To Mrs...who currently lives and resides with me'. The woman in question died in 1788 and was buried as his wife, even though there is no trace of any marriage.
In what context was she recorded 'at the daughters' baptism? What is the exact wording and where was it?
'Mrs...who currently resides with me' could be anyone. A housekeeper, a relative.
What do you mean by 'buried as his wife'? Is this in the register or on a gravestone?
...Indeed a letter from the time period shows that she was well respected amongst his friends and that her daughter nursed her. He died in 1789 and left his estate to his son and made a substantial bequest (£10000) to his daughter too. Now my question really is how does a member of the gentry get away with having a mistress and then manages to leave the estate to his illegitimate children? I thought as illegitimate children they would have had no right to inherit?
A lot of men had a mistress and not just the 'gentry'. I am not sure it would have been any big deal at this time period. There was also a lot of illegitimacy in all social classes
It would be his own affair who he left his money to. Anyone could inherit money
I am assuming the son was baptised in private somewhere so that his illegitimacy was more difficult to prove?
Unlikely
He may have been baptised but the record has not survived or is not available.
How would they have been seen within society and would he have been able to say make her out as his wife without them being married? I', assuming the Mrs suggests that she was already married and I am assuming she was from a lower social class. I am also wondering whether he deliberately didn't marry her because he hoped to do better still since his estate was impoverished.
I am a bit lost with this, any suggestions would be appreciated
thank you
They may not have been part of any particular 'society'. She could have been his wife, a mistress or a married woman. They may just have been close friends or relatives and might not have been having an affair at all.
Could you name all these people, with approximate years of births/deaths and what area this happened in. A timeline would make it easier to follow and also if you could give your sources for the information.
I think you and WillowG are making too many assumptions about these people. It is the mid 18th century, so records might be scarce, unavailable or not have survived at all.
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When you don't have evidence, speculation is all you have. And sometimes speculation can lead to evidence.
My immediate thoughts on the White/Wright idea - My immediate thoughts I do not think that that is the same name. A more common misspelling would have been Right, the sound of the two is not at all the same.
I almost had a laugh when I saw that the woman you were searching for was called Mary White :) I have too spent a lot of time searching for a Mary White! I know when she was born, I know where she was born, thanks to the censuses, but I could not find her christening or any sign of her parents for love or money. Eventually I found a Mary Wait. Everything fit, time, place. Unfortunately I also found her marriage to someone else at the same time as my Mary married, so sometimes the same name-different spelling way of thinking can actually lead you astray :)
I have actually experienced that in two other different cases too, and had to untangle the families afterwards.
My immediate thought: Mary may very well have been a Wright. James Wright writes like a cousin or an uncle or even a brother (or just a good friend). Mary Wright then marries someone named White. This marriage goes horribly wrong. He may have been a drunkard, violent, mentally ill, or they were completely incompatible in some other way. Common enough for the times.
They separate, and Mary ends up with your ancestor. Her first husband remains inconveniently alive, thus preventing the two of them from marrying.
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Sallyorks is correct - some facts would not go amiss otherwise we are dealing with fiction!
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The first thing I found was a Mary Wright that seemingly would have fit perfectly:
John Wright, Esq., of Kelvedon, who m. 1714, Elizabeth, dau. of Robert Brooke, Esq. of Weston Underwood, co. Buckingham, who d. s. p. 19 June, 1718. He m. 2ndly, 1733, Constantia, dau. of Francis Carington, otherwise Smith, Esq. of Wooton Hall, Warwickshire, and Aston Hall, Shropshire, and great-granddau. of Francis Carington, Esq., brother of Charles 1st Viscount Carington, and had issue, John, his heir, b. 1740; and two daus., Mary, b. 1735, d. 1753; and Constantia, b. 1736, a nun.
https://books.google.com/books?id=H65CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1553&lpg=PA1553&dq=James+Mary+Wright+Anston+Hall&source=bl&ots=ABezQDzmVk&sig=y7ZejcrsJ7AJ17RyHPQE8SRCcaM&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX8bORzaTTAhUL4IMKHc8zDRsQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=James%20Mary%20Wright%20Anston%20Hall&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=H65CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1553&lpg=PA1553&dq=James+Mary+Wright+Anston+Hall&source=bl&ots=ABezQDzmVk&sig=y7ZejcrsJ7AJ17RyHPQE8SRCcaM&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX8bORzaTTAhUL4IMKHc8zDRsQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=James%20Mary%20Wright%20Anston%20Hall&f=false)
But as we see, this Mary dies in 1753. Still, it might be worth the trouble to check to see if you can find that burial record for yourself, and that she did not marry somebody inappropriate or went to live with someone without being married instead. It all might be just a coincidence too and that these people have no connection to your family whatsoever. *shrugs*
Some Mary Wright-White marriages:
Mary Right who married Henry Waite on the 16th of May 1731 at Billinghay in Lincolnshire, England
Mary Wright who marries John White in 1733 in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England
Mary Wright, spinster, who marries Edward White, a bachelor of Whitehead in Warwick, on the 12th of March 1749 at Southam (or Wormleighton ?) in Warwickshire, England
Mary Wright who married Leonard Whaite on the 4th of February 1750 in Lancashire, England
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Mary Wright, spinster, who marries Edward White, a bachelor of Whitehead in Warwick, on the 12th of March 1749 at Southam (or Wormleighton ?) in Warwickshire, England
This was wrongly transcribed, looking at the original, it clearly says Edward Whitehead of Bradwell
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More about the Wrights of Aston Hall:
"He had a son, Francis, the second Baron, who left no issue, and the estates passed to Constantia Carington, a grand-daughter of Francis Carington, brother of the first Lord Carington. [She was daughter of Francis (son of Francis, brother of the first Lord) by his wife Audrey Attwood. Burke's Landed Gentry gives her as 'Constantia of Aston, who inherited the family estates from her uncle William, last male heir of this branch' - ED.)
"Constantia married twice - first, John Wright, of Kelvedon, in Essex, who left a son, John Wright; and, secondly, Peter Holford, by whom she had a daughter, Catherina Maria, who married Sir Edward Smythe, of Acton Burnell, fifth Baronet, and died in 1831. In the year 1778 these two estates were held in undivided moieties by John Wright, the son of Constantia Carington, and Catherina Maria Holford, daughter also of Constantia Carington by Peter Holford; and in the same year, there was a division, and the Aston Hall estate passed to the Wright family, and the Wootton Waven estate to the Smythes of of Acton Burnell."
https://books.google.com/books?id=1O8GAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=aston+hall+shropshire+Wright&source=bl&ots=9jhELp_afL&sig=uF6sKx3PGFzKfmplzXVEYfTluZ0&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7q-r31KTTAhUhxYMKHdroBA4Q6AEIJzAB#v=onepage&q=aston%20hall%20shropshire%20Wright&f=false (https://books.google.com/books?id=1O8GAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=aston+hall+shropshire+Wright&source=bl&ots=9jhELp_afL&sig=uF6sKx3PGFzKfmplzXVEYfTluZ0&hl=no&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj7q-r31KTTAhUhxYMKHdroBA4Q6AEIJzAB#v=onepage&q=aston%20hall%20shropshire%20Wright&f=false)
So it would appear as if these were definitely your Wrights.
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I have been assuming that Aston Hall and Anston Hall were the same, because google kept giving me hits for both (*shakes fist at google*), but I see now that is not necessarily so.
Back to the drawing board.
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Found your Wrights:
"Delivered to Charles Wright at his 2nd home of Willingham House, Market Rasen – (the Wright family’s other estate was Anston Hall – occupied by the family from the late 1600s to 1947 when it was sold). The Willingham Estate came into the Wright family ownership via the union of the daughter of the 1st owner of Willingham - Florentine Tenturier (a Huguenot who had fled France) & Matthew Boucherett in the late 1600s. In 1724 their grandson Matthew Boucherett married Isabella Ayscough of Stallinborough and their son (born 1755) was christened Ayscough Boucherett I – there were 3 subsequent Ayscoughs. The “new” Willingham House was designed in 1790 by Robert Mitchell for Ayscough II - MP, High Steward of Grimsby & responsible for the introduction of Grimsby’s new harbour prior to his death in 1815 when his curricle (a fast horse-drawn trap) overturned at the base of Willingham Hill. 1792 saw the birth of Ayscough III who became High Sheriff of Lincolnshire – he fathered 3 sons & 2 daughters - Ayscough IV died aged 15, Henry 1818/1877, Hugo died aged 20. Louisa (1821/95) and the remaining daughter Emelia (1825/1905) a noted suffragette & founder of Women’s Suffrage Journal. In 1905 with the ending of the Boucherett bloodline Willingham was inherited by the Barnes family, due to Michael Barnes marrying Mary Boucherett in 1798 (in 1552 Sir George Barnes was Lord Mayor of London). After a few years due to the end of the Barnes bloodline the property passed into the hands of the Wright family – Charles & Margarita had 7 daughters & 2 sons! Sadly both sons - Robert & Charles were killed alongside each other whilst serving with teh 1/1 Lincolnshire Yeomanry during WWI in Israel. Charles Wright only owned GF7 for 2 years as he died in 1926 when his gun went off by accident at Willingham House. During WWI the house was used as a convalescent hospital and in WWII it housed German PoWs who, due to excellent woodland cover around the house escaped on a regular basis!! The logbook shows that GF7 remained with the Wright’s until Margarita’s death in 1942 when it was transferred into the name of a relative Douglas Wright, however, the chassis cards show GF7 as being with Lt. Col. Charles Francis Cracroft Jarvis of Doddington Hall which dates from the 1600s and is still with the Jarvis family – perhaps they know more?"
http://www.realcar.co.uk/view-cars/2094 (http://www.realcar.co.uk/view-cars/2094)
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I agree with WillowG. Trying to understand the information one has and speculating on the various things that these records can mean makes one look in directions one had not yet considered. One should also always try and understand the times in which these people lived. This in turn has many a time led to results when I have hit a brick wall in my research. Answers can often lie in the most unusual places. I have extensively researched the original records that are available on this family. It is now time to understand what can be understood and to think where further information can be found and for that it is useful to try and understand what may have gone on in their lives.
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Could you please give us your basic information, and source (eg parish records) , about your indirect 'aunt' ancestor Mary White/Wright.
There are now *two topics running about 'Mary' and it's getting confusing, especially with all the Burkes Peerage stuff thrown randomly into the mix as well
*
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=769479.0
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I agree with WillowG. Trying to understand the information one has and speculating on the various things that these records can mean makes one look in directions one had not yet considered. One should also always try and understand the times in which these people lived.
The facts of 'the times in which these people lived' are this
85 percent, if not more, of people in England were of the labouring class. They lived simple lives and left few records. You have an indirect ancestor named Mary White/Wright? from Yorkshire?
Why do you think this ancestor is related to 'the gentry' exactly?
This in turn has many a time led to results when I have hit a brick wall in my research.
Yes, this is what happens when the records of most lines for most people, run out. Around about the early 18th century
Answers can often lie in the most unusual places. I have extensively researched the original records that are available on this family.
If so, then could you please give us the basic details you have about Mary White/Wright
It is now time to understand what can be understood and to think where further information can be found and for that it is useful to try and understand what may have gone on in their lives.
Or perhaps the records for Mary have run out?
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These are the known facts based on original parish registers, family letters, wills etc:
1748/9 Ayscoghe Boucherett (1712-1789) inherited the estates of North Willingham and Stallingborough from his parents. No marriage record found for him at any stage.
Lincolnshire pedigrees records his 'partner/wife' as Mary, dau of ... White: died in King street, St James' Square, 20 Aug 1788. She was recorded as mother to both of Ayscoghe's children
16.4.1755, first known child, a son named Ayscoghe was born birth place & baptism so far not found
16.12.1764 Stallingborough parish register baptisms: 'Mary daughter of Ayscoghe Boucherett Esq and Mary White December the 16th' (entry contains no further information, neither the word wife, nor illegitimate. The clergy man held his living through Ayscoghe).
1776 Ayscoghe made his will. In this he doesn't once utter the word wife as far as I can see, but makes bequests to a Mary White the exact wordings are: 'Mrs Mary White who now lives or resided with me at North Willingham.' There is no mention of who she is to him i.e. cook or mistress. Amongst other things he left her the ‘two pearl necklaces which she now wears’ a diamond ring, somewhere to live and £500, which to me doesn't sound like a cook. I do appreciate she could be a companion, relative or anything, but do point out that she appears to be the mother of his daughter at least!
March 1781: Ayscoghe jnr wrote a letter containing: 'we talk of setting out for London very shortly but when is to happen I cannot possibly tell….My Mother & Sister have got colds & sore throats' (I appreciate this could be his actual mother or stepmother)
15.7.1788 Mary Boucherett's (born 1764) received a letter from a James Wright of Bushy Park: ‘’I hold myself much obliged by your attention to me in writing the Progress of your Journey & the more so as it speaks favourably of your Mother’s Health. I need not tell you I have known Her long; & with Reason have ever had a great Regard for her. I should be very sorry to hear that the Evening of a Life spent in the worthy endeavours of promoting the Happiness of not only her own Family, but all within her Circle should moulder away in constant Pain, with the addition of seeing all her friends in vain expecting themselves to afford some Relief where none can be effectual. I will & really do hope better; She must quit all Family concerns & attend only to herself, Exercise, Buxton or some other Journey.’ I have no idea who James was (friend/relative of Mary's) but am pretty certain he was not a Boucherett relation. Any information on who this man was would be amazing.
20 Aug 1788 at King Street, St James Square London: Mary White or Mary Boucherett died. The burial records her as Mary Boucherett (all it states under burials, St James, Piccadilly is: 24.8.1788 Mary Boucherett). The Gentleman's magazine recorded: 'In King-street St James's Squ Mrs Boucherett wife of A.B. esq of Lincolnsh.' Interestingly too: Ayscoghe himself was buried in Stallingborough in 1789 and all other Boucherett's were buried in Stallingborough or North Willingham except for this woman.
This is the information I have on Mary White herself and this is the woman I am trying to understand. Was she his wife or was she his mistress?
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I previously listed the letter in which in 1782 Ayscoghe outlined his income versus the debts he still had 30 after inheriting the estate. I feel the daughter (later Mary Barne) had a very generous dowry of £10000 considering Ayscoghe still had £9200 of debts to pay off on money borrowed by his ancestors. His income was £3800. The son went to uni, failed to gain a degree, then went on grand tour (no sponsor mentioned in his letters). The son had no allowance but in 1779 his account book apparently suggests expenditure of around £600/year (original not yet seen, source Imray: The Boucherett family Archives). By the late 1770s letters indicate the family lived on a 'farm' in North Willingham. Stallingborough manor house is known to have fallen into disrepair/ruin. A new house was completed in North Willingham in around 1790, but there is mention in these letters that they were struggling to find money to build this house from at least 1782 onwards.
The estate remained in the Boucherett family until the last owner Ayscoghe's great-granddaughter the feminist Emilia Jessie Boucherett died in 1905, a spinster. She left the estate to the Barne family of Sotterley (descendants of Ayscoghe's daughter Mary b.1764). The estate later went to Charles Wright of Anston near Sheffield. Websites suggest he was related to the Boucherett's but I can't find how. I do though find it strange that we have a James Wright (see earlier) in 1788 and a Mary White (not sure how similar these names are).
1. The purpose of this thread for me was to understand who Mary White was to Ayscoghe. I have not found a marriage record (yes it may be lost) but I am heavily thinking that the records may suggest they were not married (certainly by 1776).There is an awful lot more information available on this family from their letters, a diary etc but none that give me any clarity. If anybody can find who Mary White was I would be grateful and also if somebody knows who James Wright was
2. In my other thread I was trying to establish and go through Charles Wright's family tree to try and establish whether there is a family connection and if so where. I am wondering here also if there is more to Mary White, i.e.whether she was a Wright and find it a funny coincidence that there was this James Wright in 1788 (could he hold the key). James may have been a relation of Mary's or simply a friend I simply do not know and need to find records to clarify matters, suggestions would be gratefully received.
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Ayscoghe Boucherett's 1776 will can be viewed online (the Genealogist) it is full of legal stuff and I find it difficult to read, maybe somebody can understand more than I can. He died in 1789, almost exactly 1 year after his wife/partner Mary.
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This has been suggested online, but I am not sure where the evidence has come from and I cannot see how to contact the author: 'Willingham House passed to the Barnes of Sotterly, with these being the next descendents of the Boucheretts due to an earlier marriage with one of the Boucherett daughters. The final occupants of the house were the Wrights, also related to the Boucheretts. Of these the first, Charles Wright of North Willingham, died on 10th December 1926 when his gun was triggered by accident in Willingham House, but his death was preceded by that of both of his sons, for Major Robert Wright and Lieutenant Charles Wright of the 1/1st Lincolnshire Yeomanry both died on a troop ship in Palestine on the 28th November 1917. Charles Wright's wife Isabella Margarita lived until the 10th July 1942, and a marble tablet honoring both her and her husband was placed in the church by their remaining children.'
I have seen the tablet. It doesn't tell me anything new except that Charles Wright was from Anston Hall Sheffield.
I note also it states related to, not descended from, which may hold a clue or not.
http://www.willinghamhouse.co.uk/willingham_house.htm
Anston Hall (North/South Anston) is close to (aprox 5 miles) a place named Shireoaks, which in the mid 18th century belonged to Ayscoghe's first cousin John Hewett/Thornhagh. Letters dating to the 1770s/1780s suggest that the Boucherett's visited Shireoaks regularly. He appears to have succeeded to the estate at Shireoaks in 1756.
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/thornhagh-john-1721-87
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Sorry, but this is all way too complicated to understand
We need the basic facts and their sources
For example
John Bloggs baptised on date **** at such and such church in the town of *****- with source eg Parish Register 1600- 1750 at such and such church in ****** town
John Bloggs marriage such and such and so on - with source
Mary Bloggs baptised at ***** and so on - with source
John Bloggs will at such and such - with source.
We need to start with the bare bones of what we know from reliable sources
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When you get this far back things aren't that simple. You can't make use of the censuses or the GRO index because they didn't exist yet.
There may not even be parish records.
You find a person mentioned in a will and you have to employ other techniques to find them.
It is challenging, but often it can be done. It is not for everyone perhaps, but I have found people with far less to go one than this.
It is perhaps unaccustumed if one is not used to going this far back.
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Well there are unfortunately an awful lot of records on this family I have spent years trawling through archives. Most records are not available online! There are a vast amount of letters too at various archives of which I have copies.
Boucherett Family tree published in: Lincolnshire Pedigrees Volume 1
Ayscoghe Boucherett jnr born 16.4.1755, baptism not found source:http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815
and Cambridge Alumni
http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2016B.pl?sur=boucherett&suro=w&fir=ayscoghe&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=LIN&z=all&tex=&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50
Mary Boucherett baptised at Stallingborough Church Lincolnshire (there is only one), original parish register available at: http://www.lincstothepast.com/ Reference: STALLINGBOROUGH PAR/1/2 the BTS is available at Lincoln Archives and contains the same information
Ayscoghe Boucherett's Will: Date: 15th March 1776 Probate Year: 1789... Place: Willingham, Lincolnshire...Canterbury Will, available from 'the genealogist' website and National Archives
15.7.1788 Letter from James Wright (Bushy Park) original letter held at Ipswich archives, would take me a while to find the reference number
24 Aug 1788 Mary Boucherett was buried at St James church, Piccadilly. Original record online at Find my Past
Mary Boucherett death announcement: available from The Gentleman's Magazine 1788 Volume 58, Part 2 p.758 (free ebook on Google)
I am presuming these sources are reliable enough
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Oh by the way thank you for those who speculated that Ayscoghe's friends may have been shall we say a 'rough bunch'. It got me thinking and I looked at some rental account records I had and had never quite got my head around. The rental accounts belonged to the estate of a female who was a minor. I speculated a little further then took myself off to the archives to dig through some wills and struck gold. I have found one of his close friends (I never knew existed) and he was shall we say it seems a bit of a 'Lad.' I now need to understand him a little better so research is ongoing.
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*makes a curtsey* That is exactly what I have experienced so many times too. First you have the idea, then it leads you in the right direction, and then you find something tangible and actual proof.
I am very happy for your find.
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Well there are unfortunately an awful lot of records on this family I have spent years trawling through archives. Most records are not available online! There are a vast amount of letters too at various archives of which I have copies.
Boucherett Family tree published in: Lincolnshire Pedigrees Volume 1
Ayscoghe Boucherett jnr born 16.4.1755, baptism not found source:http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815
and Cambridge Alumni
http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2016B.pl?sur=boucherett&suro=w&fir=ayscoghe&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=LIN&z=all&tex=&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50
Mary Boucherett baptised at Stallingborough Church Lincolnshire (there is only one), original parish register available at: http://www.lincstothepast.com/ Reference: STALLINGBOROUGH PAR/1/2 the BTS is available at Lincoln Archives and contains the same information
Ayscoghe Boucherett's Will: Date: 15th March 1776 Probate Year: 1789... Place: Willingham, Lincolnshire...Canterbury Will, available from 'the genealogist' website and National Archives
15.7.1788 Letter from James Wright (Bushy Park) original letter held at Ipswich archives, would take me a while to find the reference number
24 Aug 1788 Mary Boucherett was buried at St James church, Piccadilly. Original record online at Find my Past
Mary Boucherett death announcement: available from The Gentleman's Magazine 1788 Volume 58, Part 2 p.758 (free ebook on Google)
I am presuming these sources are reliable enough
Where does 'Mary White/Wright' fit into all this? ???
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Sallyyorks - I should give up, I think we have two people holding a conversation here, going over previously rehearsed data
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Will was 12 pages. Page 2 was taken up with annuity to Mrs Mary White.
Should testator's son and daughter die without issue, next heir was John Scorriff (?) of S... Oaks in Nottinghamshire, a.k.a. John Thoricliagh(?) of S... Oaks.
Should John Whateverisname died, next heir on list was testator's god-daughter, Mary Arabella Holyambo(?), wife of Francis Fford/ Fforrard (?) Holyambo (?).
A page seemed to concern parsonage and tithes.
Complex will. Concentration and eyesight were flagging by p.3
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Sallyyorks - I should give up, I think we have two people holding a conversation here, going over previously rehearsed data
I agree and It's getting harder to hold my tongue with each post
However. This is what I understand so far
wildwitch has a distant indirect ancestor called Mary Wright/White. She has a hunch that this might possibly be the Mrs Mary White mentioned in the will of Ayscoghe Boucherett, some kind of minor gentry bloke from Stallingborough, near Grimsby.
Forgetting the Mrs White mentioned in the will and the Boucherrett's for a moment. The problem as I see it, is that we have been given no information at all about wildwitchs 'distant relative' called Mary Wright/White. The person that wildwitch and WillowG are trying to connect to the Mrs White in the will.
Where was she found by the topic starter?
Who were her parents/siblings?
Where was she from?
What were the occupations of her extended family?
Where are the extended family on the census possibly?, in parish records?
We need to know who wildwitchs Mary Wright/White is first, before we can connect her to the Mary White in the will
Added- and it doesn't help that there are two topics on this, running at the same time. We don't even know if this is about Aston Hall or Anston Hall either
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=769479.36
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I think I can see where the misunderstanding is coming from now :)
Wildwitch's field of interest of study is the Boucherett family.
Ayscoghe Boucherett of Willingham and Stallingborough (1712-1789) had two children, Ayscoghe Boucherett (1755-1815) and Mary Boucherett (1764-1858).
The mother of these children was Mary White.
Wildwitch has proved through her dilligent research that Mary White and Ayscoghe Boucherett in all likehood were not married, and after looking at the sources I agree with her. That is what the first part of this thread - when we talked - was about, us discussing whether this was possible in the 1700s and me talking about the social history of the time.
However, married or not, Mary White was the mother of these children. Therefore, we have tried to figure out who she was.
Where was she found by the topic starter?
Who were her parents/siblings?
Where was she from?
What were the occupations of her extended family?
Where are the extended family on the census possibly?, in parish records?
We cannot tell you any of these things, because we do not know. This is precisely the information we are trying to find :)
The only things we know about Mary White is that her two children were the acknowledged children and heirs of Ayscoghe Boucherett of Willingham and Stallingborough (1712-1789). We know that she is mentioned is his will of 1776 as 'Mrs. Mary White', meaning that she might have possibly been married to someone else, thus preventing a marriage between her and the father of her two children. We know that she died in London in 1788 and was buried under the name of Mary Boucherett.
We want to know who she is, who her family was, etc. It is a classical brickwall situation.
And the only clue we have is that she is mentioned in a letter in 1788, which was written by a gentleman named James Wright who resided at Bushy Park.
This is extra interesting, because the estate of the Boucherett family eventually ends up with the Wright family of Anston Hall in Yorkshire, because the two families are related somehow. After years of research Wildwitch has moved steadily back through the centuries without finding any connection between these two families, until she reached Ayscoghe Boucherett and his Mrs. Mary White. Hence Wildwitch's idea that this family link which connects the two families is Mrs. Mary White, and that she is really a Mary Wright of Anston Hall.
Wildwitch's idea is that White and Wright are different non-standardised spellings of the same name.
I lean more towards the thought that Mary Wright of Anston Hall married someone by the last name of White, and that this marriage went horribly wrong. And that she instead ended up with Ayscoghe Boucherett (1712-1789), and that they were unable to marry because Mrs. Mary White's husband was still alive.
And it is Anston Hall, not Aston. That mistake was all mine, because when I googled I got hits for both, even though I only searched for Anston. I discovered my mistake, and 'withdrew' those posts immediately.
The Wrights of Anston Hall in Yorkshire are the ones who inherited the Boucherett estate.
Now Maiden Stone has very kindly taken a look upon the will of Ayscoghe Boucherett (1712-1789) that he wrote in 1776, and her findings there, something Wildwitch suggests otherwhere, and something I individually thought of, may suggest that the link between the Wrights of Anston Hall in Yorkshire and the Boucheretts lie even further back in time.
Still, that doesn't answer who Mrs. Mary White was, and that still has interest in its own right.
And so has the subject of who was the James Wright in 1788 who penned that letter.
And the fact that Mrs. Mary White may have been Miss Mary Wright of Anston Hall still deserves careful consideration.
I hope this made things much clearer.
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Thank you that summary is exactly correct.
Thank you Maiden Stone for trying to read the will I am grateful. I agree it gave me a headache. The names you tried to read were John Hewett aka John Thornhagh of Shireoaks (changed his name as part of an inheritance) and Mary Arabella and her husband Francis Foljambe
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I think I can see where the misunderstanding is coming from now :)
Wildwitch's field of interest of study is the Boucherett family.
Ayscoghe Boucherett of Willingham and Stallingborough (1712-1789) had two children, Ayscoghe Boucherett (1755-1815) and Mary Boucherett (1764-1858).
The mother of these children was Mary White.
Wildwitch has proved through her dilligent research that....
Yes I understand all that, or at least i think I do, but
Who is wildwitch a 'distant relative' of?
A Mary Wright/White?
or
The Boucherett's?
and
What is the evidence that the 'Mrs White', mentioned in the will, is the mother of the Boucherett children or the mistress of Mr Boucherett?
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Nobody has ever said that Wildwitch is a distant relative of any of them :) I have a great interest in the Tudors, but to my knowledge I am not a bit related to any of them.
and
What is the evidence that the 'Mrs White', mentioned in the Will, is the mother of the Boucherrett children or the mistress of Mr Boucherrett?
Mary Boucherett's (1764-1858) christening record. 'Mary daughter of Ayscoghe Boucherett Esq and Mary White December the 16th' (entry contains no further information, neither the word wife, nor illegitimate. The clergy man held his living through Ayscoghe).
Ayscoghe Boucherett's will makes it pretty clear that she is his mistress. The exact wordings are: 'Mrs Mary White who now lives or resided with me at North Willingham [...] two pearl necklaces which she now wears’ a diamond ring, somewhere to live and £500.
A legal document I found referencing Ayscoghe Boucherett's will and which is quoted in its entirety in the other thread: 'Mrs Mary White might receive an annuity of £300 for life. [...] That Mary White died in the testator's lifetime.' In other words, she died between 1776 and 1789, just like his children's mother by the same name who was buried in 1788.
Every genealogy book, her son's entry in the history of parliament online, her son's wikipedia page, all agree that his mother was called Mary White.
Lincolnshire Pedigrees
https://archive.org/stream/lincolnshirepedi01madd#page/n357/mode/2up/search/White (https://archive.org/stream/lincolnshirepedi01madd#page/n357/mode/2up/search/White)
A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain
https://books.google.no/books?id=2FE4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=lincolnshire+Mary+White+Boucherett&source=bl&ots=R83JncpiE4&sig=xpqKXY-XdCmEWSh0c1lltwuQb5M&hl=no&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=lincolnshire%20Mary%20White%20Boucherett&f=false (https://books.google.no/books?id=2FE4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA122&lpg=PA122&dq=lincolnshire+Mary+White+Boucherett&source=bl&ots=R83JncpiE4&sig=xpqKXY-XdCmEWSh0c1lltwuQb5M&hl=no&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=lincolnshire%20Mary%20White%20Boucherett&f=false)
BOUCHERETT, Ayscoghe (1755-1815), of Willingham and Stallingborough, Lincs.
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815 (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815)
Ayscoghe Boucherett - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayscoghe_Boucherett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayscoghe_Boucherett)
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Oh
I have just noticed. The above link
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815
lists a reference (under Notes) I have never heard of: Farrington, iii. 23 states: ‘Boucherett is the natural son of the gentleman whose name and estate he inherits’. No other evidence confirms this.
Does anybody know what this Farrington iii is and where to find the original?
thank you
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Oh sorry I have just found it and I had previously red it
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Nobody has ever said that Wildwitch is a distant relative of any of them :) ...
wildwitch said in the very first post of this topic
I am currently researching an ancestor who was a member of the landed gentry (esquire)...
and in a previous topic . 'French Revolution'
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=761750.msg6130706#msg6130706
I have just found a diary for a distant relative who was female and a member of the english gentry. The diary ...
Mary Boucherett's (1764-1858) christening record. 'Mary daughter of Ayscoghe Boucherett Esq and Mary White December the 16th' (entry contains no further information, neither the word wife, nor illegitimate. The clergy man held his living through Ayscoghe).
So there is no mention at all in the christening record that Mary Boucherett was illegitimate. The mention that the mother is Mary White might be her maiden name. Maiden names were sometimes recorded at christenings. As I have already said. I have seen two instances of this in my own tree at the same time period.
Why would it mention 'wife'?
Ayscoghe Boucherett's will makes it pretty clear that she is his mistress. The exact wordings are: 'Mrs Mary White who now lives or resided with me at North Willingham [...] two pearl necklaces which she now wears’ a diamond ring, somewhere to live and £500.
No, this does not mean that it is his mistress. It could be a trusted servant, a relative, the children's nanny, a friend. It is someone who lives in the household, that is all we know. Boucherett might even have been an assumed name. The family might have used White and Boucherett
A legal document I found referencing Ayscoghe Boucherett's will and which is quoted in its entirety in the other thread: 'Mrs Mary White might receive an annuity of £300 for life. [...] That Mary White died in the testator's lifetime." In other words, she died between 1776 and 1789, just like his children's mother by the same name who was buried in 1788.
But this does not prove anything. That they both, or the same person, died between 1776 and 1789 is not enough
Every genealogy book, her son's entry in the history of parliament online, her son's wikipedia page, all agree that his mother was called Mary White.
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815 (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/boucherett-ayscoghe-1755-1815)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayscoghe_Boucherett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayscoghe_Boucherett)
Her maiden name?
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I was not aware that we needed to deliver a copy of our birth certificate to this site in order to be able to use it.
In fact, I was under the impression that we were discouraged from giving out personal information that might link us to our real identities.
I find the above evidence persuasive. Others might not. *shrugs* That is why we have sites like these. To discuss things like that. We had moved on with our discussion with the objective to find Mary White. Perhaps further energies would be best invested in that.
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‘Boucherett is the natural son of the gentleman whose name and estate he inherits’.
Yes, I noticed that too, Wildwitch :)
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Firstly, apologies if I have misunderstood, but this is a fairly complex thread and I admittedly have not invested much time in studying it, nor have I read the other thread on the same subject.
This might be too simplistic and secondly, apologies if it has already been addressed, but in order to get back to the mysterious Mary White, you must be a descendant of one of her children. (Unless this is a "side shoot" which you are trying to find a link to? ) ;)
Mary White is an extremely common name. Have you examined all the other Mary Whites in the area at that time to eliminate them?
One more comment - although nothing is ever certain, I am doubtful that minor gentry would confuse the surnames White and Wright - as any issues relating to inheritance would need to be accurately recorded.
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I was not aware that we needed to deliver a copy of our birth certificate to this site in order to be able to use it.
In fact, I was under the impression that we were discouraged from giving out personal information that might link us to our real identities.
It is usual to post all the information you have about the particular ancestor you're researching.
How did we arrive at this particular Mary Wright/White? In order to find out more about Mary's past, we need to know how wildwitch came back to this point in her research.
Was this via the Boucherett's or via a Mary Wright/White?
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Firstly, apologies if I have misunderstood, but this is a fairly complex thread and I admittedly have not invested much time in studying it, nor have I read the other thread on the same subject.
This might be too simplistic and secondly, apologies if it has already been addressed, but in order to get back to the mysterious Mary White, you must be a descendant of one of her children. (Unless this is a "side shoot" which you are trying to find a link to? ) ;)
Mary White is an extremely common name. Have you examined all the other Mary Whites in the area at that time to eliminate them?
One more comment - although nothing is ever certain, I am doubtful that minor gentry would confuse the surnames White and Wright - as any issues relating to inheritance would need to be accurately recorded.
Yes, this is excellent advice
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Another thing to be mindful of is that some published pedigrees can be wildly inaccurate. Genealogy was a popular hobby in Victorian times, and the aim of the game seemed to be to find the link to Royalty, presumably in some cases, at the expense of accuracy and thorough research. So much harder back then than it is now, so we need to give them a bit of leeway I suppose. :D
However you do find these old pedigrees published online these days, and people tend to copy other's trees when they look half decent, and so errors proliferate all over the internet.
I am not suggesting this is the case here, but just mentioning it for others who may be following this thread. :)
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It's getting harder to hold my tongue with each post
Is that comment really necessary? Why not write what you actually mean?
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How did we arrive at this particular Mary Wright/White? In order to find out more about Mary's past, we need to know how wildwitch came back to this point in her research.
Was this via the Boucherett's or via a Mary Wright/White?
I do not know how many times I can keep answering the same question. We have arrived at this Mary White because she is given as the mother of the children of Ayscoghe Boucherett.
I do not understand the difficulty in comprehending this.
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Firstly, apologies if I have misunderstood, but this is a fairly complex thread and I admittedly have not invested much time in studying it, nor have I read the other thread on the same subject.
This might be too simplistic and secondly, apologies if it has already been addressed, but in order to get back to the mysterious Mary White, you must be a descendant of one of her children. (Unless this is a "side shoot" which you are trying to find a link to? ) ;)
Mary White is an extremely common name. Have you examined all the other Mary Whites in the area at that time to eliminate them?
One more comment - although nothing is ever certain, I am doubtful that minor gentry would confuse the surnames White and Wright - as any issues relating to inheritance would need to be accurately recorded.
Yes I absolutely agree I am not convinced about the misspelling bit, there is however reportedly somewhere a family connection between the Boucherett's and the Wrights of Anston, so I am looking at any even unusual possibilities. I have tried several White families and so far have found nothing. In fact both names Wright and White occur amongst the common population of the Boucherett estate
Farrington, iii. 23 states: ‘Boucherett is the natural son of the gentleman whose name and estate he inherits’. No other evidence confirms this.
I think I need to look at this source a little bit more too. Farinton was a contemporary to Ayscoghe Boucherett (1755-1815, son of Ayscoghe Boucherett (1712-89) and Mary White). Farrington claimed: 'Mr Ayscough Boucheret is the natural son of the gentleman whos name and estate he inherits.' I'm not sure how accurate he was or where he got this information from (I am assuming maybe gossip?). I do wonder though whether he would have made such a comment (if untrue) when Ayscoghe's widow Emilia and children were still alive and probably reading this. Emilia's family the Angersteins were quite a substantial family and friends with royalty. Just a thought anyway.
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How did we arrive at this particular Mary Wright/White? In order to find out more about Mary's past, we need to know how wildwitch came back to this point in her research.
Was this via the Boucherett's or via a Mary Wright/White?
I do not know how many times I can keep answering the same question. We have arrived at this Mary White because she is given as the mother of the children of Ayscoghe Boucherett.
I do not understand the difficulty in comprehending this.
So we are back to square one? Nothing is known about her as it is likely she was a commoner? There is no paper trail and nothing more to be found about her? Dead end? :-\
All I can think to suggest is to look at all of the Mary Whites in the area and make up "mini trees for each of them to see if one slips off the radar and may be a candidate for the above Mary White. If Mary White was a servant for example, she could have come from anywhere - as we know people did travel long distances to take up a suitable position.
I can understand the temptation to presume that White and Wright are one and the same because you either cannot find a suitable Mary White, whereas you can find a Wright Boucherette connection. I am not sure if it is too much of a leap of faith though. ;)
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I agree Mary White may never be found, although I did spend years searching for another ancestor once and eventually just happened to pick up the right will at the archives, so I will keep digging. There is simply too little information on her and the only way she will I feel be found is by chance i.e. mentioned in somebody's will with the Boucherett name mentioned. Mini trees are very useful I have used them often and with success when I have had complex family branches, people to eliminate etc.
The much more interesting question to me was whether Ayscoghe and Mary White were married and I gather that will also never be answered with certainty either. This Joseph Farington though is an interesting piece of information. I'm not sure how well he knew the Boucherett's, but Ayscoghe (born 1755, son of the above Ayscoghe and Mary White) was close friends with the painter Lawrence (plenty of references on that, personal letters etc). Lawrence and Farington were friends according to the Farington diaries. These diaries are online (see extract)
Farington claims that Ayscoghe Boucherett was the natural! son of a man by the same name! which makes me wonder whether he knew something because he knew the Boucherett family or had access to friends or had heard gossip.
https://archive.org/stream/faringtondiaryvo027674mbp#page/n49/mode/2up
The only way though to definitively find out whether Ayscoghe Boucherett and Mary White were married is by finding their marriage record (if they ever married). The baptism of their son Ayscoghe (born 1755) may also hold answers. I have been unable to find either record, but would be grateful if anybody else manages to locate these records.
I personally feel that Ayscoghe Boucherett and Mary White were never married, but appreciate there is no certainty to make a definitive claim.
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So we are back to square one? Nothing is known about her as it is likely she was a commoner? There is no paper trail and nothing more to be found about her? Dead end? :-\
All I can think to suggest is to look at all of the Mary Whites in the area and make up "mini trees for each of them to see if one slips off the radar and may be a candidate for the above Mary White. If Mary White was a servant for example, she could have come from anywhere - as we know people did travel long distances to take up a suitable position.
I can understand the temptation to presume that White and Wright are one and the same because you either cannot find a suitable Mary White, whereas you can find a Wright Boucherette connection. I am not sure if it is too much of a leap of faith though. ;)
I am quoting freely from my own posts :)
The only things we know about Mary White is that her two children were the acknowledged children and heirs of Ayscoghe Boucherett of Willingham and Stallingborough (1712-1789). We know that she is mentioned is his will of 1776 as 'Mrs. Mary White', meaning that she might have possibly been married to someone else, thus preventing a marriage between her and the father of her two children. We know that she died in London in 1788 and was buried under the name of Mary Boucherett.
We want to know who she is, who her family was, etc. It is a classical brickwall situation.
And the only clue we have is that she is mentioned in a letter in 1788, which was written by a gentleman named James Wright who resided at Bushy Park.
This is extra interesting, because the estate of the Boucherett family eventually ends up with the Wright family of Anston Hall in Yorkshire, because the two families are related somehow. After years of research Wildwitch has moved steadily back through the centuries without finding any connection between these two families, until she reached Ayscoghe Boucherett and his Mrs. Mary White. Hence Wildwitch's idea that this family link which connects the two families is Mrs. Mary White, and that she is really a Mary Wright of Anston Hall.
Wildwitch's (the original poster's) idea is that White and Wright are different non-standardised spellings of the same name.
I lean more towards the thought that Mary Wright of Anston Hall married someone by the last name of White, and that this marriage went horribly wrong. And that she instead ended up with Ayscoghe Boucherett (1712-1789), and that they were unable to marry because Mrs. Mary White's husband was still alive.
The primary sources we have are these:
Mary Boucherett's (1764-1858) christening record. 'Mary daughter of Ayscoghe Boucherett Esq and Mary White December the 16th' (entry contains no further information, neither the word wife, nor illegitimate. The clergy man held his living through Ayscoghe).
Ayscoghe Boucherett's will: The exact wordings are: 'Mrs Mary White who now lives or resided with me at North Willingham [...] two pearl necklaces which she now wears’ a diamond ring, somewhere to live and £500.
A legal document I found referencing Ayscoghe Boucherett's will and which is quoted in its entirety in the other thread: 'Mrs Mary White might receive an annuity of £300 for life. [...] That Mary White died in the testator's lifetime.' In other words, she died between 1776 and 1789, just like his children's mother by the same name who was buried in 1788.
Our thought is that she was brought up as a gentlewoman, in other words, from a family of some means :)
In the other thread, I have looked for Wrights of Anston Hall in Yorkshire.
Robert Wright (1759-1831) of Anston married Elizabeth Staveley (1760-1834) in 1781.
His father Robert Wright (1729-1800) of Anston married first Mary Clay in 1743 and then secondly Elizabeth Ibbordson (d.1807) in 1750. Robert and Elizabeth had two sons, Robert and George, and one daughter Elizabeth, who married Samuel Roberts.
His grandfather Robert Wright of Anston married Ann Tricket (d.1770) in 1719. They had one son, Robert, and perhaps Mary Wright White Boucherett.
His great-grandfather Robert Wright married Mary Satterfield in 1689. They had one son, Robert, perhaps one more, John, and perhaps a daughter, Isabella, who married first a Mr. Pitts and then secondly Robert Wright, through which she had a grandson James Wright, who could have penned the above letter.
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Thank you WilliowG for the names, much appreciated. I need to systematically go through these people and find wills, personal letters etc (archive digging). I have though made an interesting discovery and have another family to systematically go through. I discovered that the Whites of Wallingwells were a prominent family (MPs etc) right next to Anston. White and Wright in the same place, both prominent families, very curious. Anyway I need to get myself onto their family trees and look at family records, wills etc for these two families, at the very least so that I can start to exclude people.
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Thank you WilliowG for the names, much appreciated. I need to systematically go through these people and find wills, personal letters etc (archive digging). I have though made an interesting discovery and have another family to systematically go through. I discovered that the Whites of Wallingwells were a prominent family (MPs etc) right next to Anston. White and Wright in the same place, both prominent families, very curious. Anyway I need to get myself onto their family trees and look at family records, wills etc for these two families, at the very least so that I can start to exclude people.
Life is often stranger than fiction :) I have encountered coincidences like that too.
Yes, the above is sadly useless without any proof.
Let me know if you encounter this chap, whom I am searching for:
Henry Wright Esquire, Surgeon 1742, by William Hoare
(http://lowres-picturecabinet.com.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/51/main/5/209901.jpg)
He dies in 1794. I know who he married and who his children are, etc. but his parents are a complete mystery.
It would be rather funny if he ended up being one of the Wrights of Anston Hall.
Ann Wright of Anston apparently left a will proven 5th of July 1770, but I couldn't find it. I can't find the reference now.
I wish you the very best of luck.
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Ayscoghe Boucherett's will makes it pretty clear that she is his mistress. The exact wordings are: 'Mrs Mary White who now lives or resided with me at North Willingham [...] two pearl necklaces which she now wears’ a diamond ring, somewhere to live and £500.
"No, this does not mean that it is his mistress. It could be a trusted servant, a relative, the children's nanny, a friend. It is someone who lives in the household, that is all we know. " (quote from Sally Yorks)
IMO she wasn't a servant. If she had been: a). she would have likely been referred to as his servant; b). he was not likely to have left her an annuity amounting to many multiples of a servant's salary; c) her bequests and annuity wouldn't have taken up an entire page of his will. (NB it was page 2, her provision came before everyone else's.)
I may not have scrutinised all 12 pages of the will, but as I understood, Mary White, the son and daughter were the 3 important people in it.
Not sure of protocol about such things in those days. However I doubt that he would have it written in his will "to my mistress Mrs Mary White...".
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Thank you Maiden Stone that is exactly what I am thinking. I am also thinking that had she been his wife he would also have mentioned this, especially since she had a different surname to him.
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Just closing my browsers and found a few links from when we discussed that Ayscoghe Boucherett's (1712-1789) parents/ancestor's/relatives had amassed their massive debts through gambling, which their son spent his entire life paying and paying for.
Quoting a few bits just in case it is of interest, links to the entire article underneath.
'Gambling, an Accepted Regency Pastime
For centuries, gambling was viewed as a vice typical of the upper classes, but during the Regency this way of passing the time became an even more accepted practice. Card games were played at private parties and at public assemblies, where both sexes indulged in these activities. While the games were often harmless and played for fun, high stakes betting could lead to vice, shocking losses, and crippling addiction. Men gambled and lost vast sums in the men’s clubs in St. James’s, often losing their inheritance.'
(https://janeaustensworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/interior-of-modern-hell-cruikshank1.jpg?w=768&h=467)
'The politician Charles Fox, able to play for long periods without sleep, lost his fortune at the gaming tables. Horace Walpole described one of Fox’s marathon gambling sessions:
He had sat up playing Hazard at Almack’s from Tuesday evening, 4th February [1778], till five in the afternoon of Wednesday 5th. An hour before he had recovered £12,000 that he had lost, and by dinner, which was at five o’clock, he had ended losing £11,000. On Thursday he spoke, went to dinner at past eleven at night; from thence to White’s, where he drank till seven the next morning; thence to Almack’s, where he won £6,000; and between three and four in the afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost £11,000 two nights after, and Charles £10,000 more on the 13th; so that in three nights the two brothers, the eldest not twenty-five, lost £32,000. – Lowe, p 129.
Fox’s father, Lord Holland, paid off his son’s debt to the princely tune of £140,000. (In today’s terms this sum would be astronomical – depending on the inflation converter you used, you would multiply the sum by 97 to get at the value of 1780 money today.) The Prince of Wales, in rebellion against his frugal father, modeled his own conduct after that of Fox. Known for his extravagant lifestyle, Prinny set the pace for hedonistic living as Regent and King.'
https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/gambling-an-accepted-regency-pastime/ (https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/gambling-an-accepted-regency-pastime/)
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The Great Georgian Gambling Epidemic
By Cheryl Bolen
'The nobility of the Georgian era did lose their estates at the gaming tables, and there were few aristocrats of the era whose fortunes were not affected by the rampant gambling epidemic.
One of the earliest Georgians to find himself in Faro’s grip was the Duke of Richmond, who paid off his gambling debts in 1719 by pledging his 18-year-old son (and future duke) to the 13-year-old daughter of the Earl of Cadogan. The two were promptly married, but the bride did not see her husband again until she was 16.'
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/75/Sarah_Cadogan.jpg)
The Duke and the Duchess of Richmond
Sarah Cadogan (1705–1751) and Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701–1750)
Their arranged marriage was actually a huge success, especially by Georgian standards
'In the middle of the eighteenth century, play centered around the men’s clubs which were springing up on St. James. The most famous of these was White’s, which moved to St. James in 1755. Formerly a chocolate shop, it was originally established in 1693. Directly across the street from White’s, the famed Whig club, Brooks, was founded in 1778. (Fourteen years earlier Brooks had been established as Almack’s gambling club.) Boodles, established in 1762, also occupied sumptuous quarters on St. James, along with The Cocoa-Tree, which dated to 1700. Nearby, at 81 Piccadilly, Waiter’s (named for the regent’s chef) opened for business in 1807 but closed in 1819, allegedly because of huge gambling losses suffered by its members.
According to The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, "A boy...is sent to school to be initiated. In the course of a few years he acquires a profound knowledge of the science of gambling, and before he leaves the University he is perfectly fitted for a member of the gaming clubs into which he is elected before he takes his seat in either house of Parliament'
'One of the most prolific gamblers of the era was noted Whig statesman Charles James Fox, the second son of Lord Holland. One of Lord Holland’s last acts was to settle a staggering 140,000 pounds of his son’s debts, but the indulged Fox continued to win and lose huge fortunes in a single sitting. He once gambled from Tuesday night until Friday with no sleep, taking time off one evening to debate in the House of Commons. He played hazard from Tuesday evening until five Wednesday evening, covering 12,000 pounds he had lost, but losing that and 11,000 more before going to Parliament. At eleven that night he went to White’s and drank all night, returning in the morning to Almack’s (later to be known as Brook’s), where he won 6,000 pounds, then rode to the races at Newmarket, where he lost l0,000 pounds.'
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Charles_James_Fox_by_Karl_Anton_Hickel.jpg/500px-Charles_James_Fox_by_Karl_Anton_Hickel.jpg)
The Right Honourable Charles James Fox (1749–1806)
'Because of his charismatic personality, he had many friends who were perpetually loaning him money — or offering subscriptions for annuities toward his many debts. It is said that at one point the Earl of Carlisle was paying one sixth of his own income toward the interests on Fox’s debts. (Foreman)'
'Another big loser was Admiral Harvey, who lost 100,000 pounds at White’s and offered to sell his estate as payment. Fortunately for him, the Irish gamester to whom he lost agreed to settle for 10,000 pounds.
Lord Sefton was not as lucky. When he succeeded, he immediately settled his father’s gambling debs of 40,000 pounds.
Lord Thanet lost his entire income of 50,000 in one sitting.
The deepest play occurred in the 1770s when five thousand pounds were stacked on one card at faro, and 70,000 pounds changed hands in one night. (Trevelyan)'
'Horseracing, cards and dice weren’t Lady Luck’s only lures. Wagers at White’s included items as diverse as betting on a change in weather, the birth of a child, color of a coach horse, or an article in the newspaper. Until it was outlawed in 1774, gamesters even wagered on when people would die.'
'During the reign of George III aristocratic women were as likely as men to lose at deep play.
Perhaps the heaviest loser of the period was Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who at one time ran a faro bank at her home. There was no time in her married life (and she married on her seventeenth birthday) that she was completely free from gambling debts. Even one of the largest fortunes in England was not enough to insulate her against crippling losses. Consider that her husband’s properties included seven of the kingdom’s most magnificent residences: Chiswick, Chatsworth, Lismore Castle in Ireland, Burlington House and Devonshire House in London, Bolton Abby, and Hardwick House. His annual income was 60,000 pounds; her pin money for a year was 4,000 pounds. (A vicar at the time could raise a family on 200 pounds a year.) It is calculated that the duchess’s gambling losses totaled a million pounds. Confessing the extent of them to her husband was something she could never bring herself to do.'
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(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Thomas_Gainsborough_Lady_Georgiana_Cavendish.jpg/220px-Thomas_Gainsborough_Lady_Georgiana_Cavendish.jpg)
Portrait of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
by Thomas Gainsborough, 1785–87
'At one point in 1885 the duke wrote a note of 1,300 pounds to settle her debts, but instead of paying it to her bankers she gambled it away — and 500 more. Just weeks before delivering her second child she would sit up all night at faro. A friend at that time wrote, "The duke has paid five thousand pound for her and she owes three more." (The duke, too, suffered large losses at Brook’s, where he would gamble all through the night.) Another acquaintance wrote, "I heard the Devonshire estate is put to nurse and the family reduced to a small (sarcastic) pittance of 8,000 a year. It will really be poverty to them who could not keep within their original immense income."'
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/72/59/9c/72599c7057d2879d872b572db5855083.jpg)
Georgiana Cavendish née Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806)
''The duchess’s younger sister, Harriet (Lady Bessborough) and her husband also gambled for high stakes. Unfortunately, their income was a fraction of her sister’s. Harriet’s annual pin money was 400 pounds, while her husband supported their family on 2,000 a year. Harriet was reportedly once arrested for debts. In 1793 Lord Bessborough wrote to his wife, "I really believe you are become sensible that we cannot go on as we have done, and that for the furure you will be firm in a resolution to contract no new debts. You must see that in exhorting you to this I am pleading not only for ourselves but our children." (Bessborough)'
(A short, informative and entertaining biography of Harriet, Lady Bessborough: http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.no/2008/11/tart-of-week-harriet-lady-bessborough.html (http://georgianaduchessofdevonshire.blogspot.no/2008/11/tart-of-week-harriet-lady-bessborough.html))
'Another noble lady was prosecuted in 1797 for running a gaming house. Lady Buckingham was said to actually sleep in the parlor with a blunderbuss and a pair of pistols at her side to protect her faro bank.
Steinmetz, in his The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, lays the blame for the gambling epidemic upon the hedonistic Prince of Wales (later regent). He said the prince’s Carlton House was "almost as great a scandal to the country as Whitehall in the time of improper King Charles II. The influence which the example of a young prince, of manners eminently popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm was most disastrous in every way and ruinous to public moralty."
Indeed, the prince (who, not incidentally, was a great friend of Fox and the Duchess of Devonshire) amassed staggering gaming debts that forced him to marry his loathed cousin. And it was gaming debts that sent the prince’s former favorite Beau Brummel into exile in France.
General Blucher, one the heroes of Waterloo, lost 25,000 pounds at the prince’s Carlton House, forcing him to flee England the year before Waterloo.
When the regent became King George IV and moved from Carlton House to Buckingham House, his debauchery diminished somewhat, and when his niece became monarch in the decade after his 1830 death, the aristocracy, for the most part, adopted her prudish ways. Perhaps they had no choice. Their ancestors had likely already squandered away their fortunes.''
http://www.cherylbolen.com/gambling.htm (http://www.cherylbolen.com/gambling.htm)
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How did we arrive at this particular Mary Wright/White? In order to find out more about Mary's past, we need to know how wildwitch came back to this point in her research.
Was this via the Boucherett's or via a Mary Wright/White?
I do not know how many times I can keep answering the same question. We have arrived at this Mary White because she is given as the mother of the children of Ayscoghe Boucherett.
I do not understand the difficulty in comprehending this.
I don't think you understand my question
I am asking where wildwitch's tree fits in with this tree, not about where Mary Wright/White fits in with the Bouchourett's.
We need the data on how wildwitch's tree has come to this point. We need to come forward and add the basic information about the next generation.
How is wildwitch related to this tree?
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I agree with Sallyyorks.
Interesting though the recently posted histories are, they are leading the thread slightly off topic, and they make a complex and verbose thread even more complex and verbose. :)
It would be hard for anyone to catch up in order to follow or help with this thread.
Maybe a brief summary of what is known, and what is still being looked for, might get it back on track, and encourage some new input?
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I agree with Ruskie and Sally, but repeat my previous remark - I don't think this is a serious enquiry, just a pre-arranged "conversation" between two fairly recent members of the group with a suspiciously similar numbers
of posts
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Has it ever occurred to you that maybe this is too complicated for you to understand because it is too complicated for you to understand?
Maybe this just isn't the thread for you?
Lol, is having a conversation with someone really such an alien and strange concept that it must be pre-arranged? :) I often have enjoyable conversations with people I like and who share the same interests as me.
I have only done my best to try and help someone who was new here, like people helped me.
The plain facts of the case (which have been stated over and over again) are as follows:
Mary White died in 1788.
She was the mother of Ayscoghe Boucherett who was born in 1755, and Mary Boucherett who was baptised in 1764. Her christening record clearly states that her mother's name was Mary White.
Mary White may or may have been related to a James Wright who lived at Bushy Park in 1788.
There. Go forth and see what you can find.
Perhaps you can contribute something useful to this thread, instead of trying to distract those of us who have done our best to help solve this mystery from accomplishing our goal.
Finally, I will ask anyone who has visited this thread to familiarise themselves with the following concept:
Astroturfing. It is outlined here. Have you ever heard of a grassroots effort? Astroturfing is something that is trying to appear to be grassroots but actually isn’t. (That’s where the name comes from, AstroTurf is fake grass).
https://youtu.be/-bYAQ-ZZtEU (https://youtu.be/-bYAQ-ZZtEU)
And: https://youtu.be/OauLuWXD_RI (https://youtu.be/OauLuWXD_RI)
It is why the IMDB message boards were closed down. It is a threat to forums and rational conversations everywhere.
Whoever the troll is here, it isn't me.
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Has it ever occurred to you that maybe this is too complicated for you to understand because it is too complicated for you to understand?
Maybe this just isn't the thread for you?
Yes. This thread is too complicated for me to understand. Could you please answer my question, how is any of this related to wildwitch's tree? Is wildwitch a relative of the Boucherret's? or of someone named Mary Wright/White?
Could you please come forward in time and post the details of the descendants of this tree. How did the tree arrive at this point?
Lol, is having a conversation with someone really such an alien and strange concept that it must be pre-arranged? :) I often have enjoyable conversations with people I like and who share the same interests as me.
I have only done my best to try and help someone who was new here, like people helped me.
You are right , having conversations about historical context is interesting but we are getting off track with posts about other people who are totally unconnected to this family.
The plain facts of the case (which have been stated over and over again) are as follows:
Mary White died in 1788.
She was the mother of Ayscoghe Boucherett who was born in 1755, and Mary Boucherett who was baptised in 1764. Her christening record clearly states that her mother's name was Mary White.
Mary White may or may have been related to a James Wright who lived at Bushy Park in 1788.
There. Go forth and see what you can find.
We need the details of the tree. How has wildwitch arrived at this point?
Please could you post the descendants.
Perhaps you can contribute something useful to this thread, instead of trying to distract those of us who have done our best to help solve this mystery from accomplishing our goal.
Finally, I will ask anyone who has visited this thread to familiarise themselves with the following concept:
Astroturfing. It is outlined here. Have you ever heard of a grassroots effort? Astroturfing is something that is trying to appear to be grassroots but actually isn’t. (That’s where the name comes from, AstroTurf is fake grass).
https://youtu.be/-bYAQ-ZZtEU (https://youtu.be/-bYAQ-ZZtEU)
And: https://youtu.be/OauLuWXD_RI (https://youtu.be/OauLuWXD_RI)
It is why the IMDB message boards were closed down. It is a threat to forums and rational conversations everywhere.
Whoever the troll is here, it isn't me.
I had not heard of astroturfing before , is this an American concept? but no we are not 'astroturfing'. We just need the details of the descendants and the wider tree
I have repeatedly asked for the information on this tree and how the tree got to this point in time?
Please post the details of the next generation and come forward with the tree, otherwise it just looks like a desperate attempt to link some random person named Mary Wright/White (not an uncommon name in England) to another tree of some minor gentry family named Boucherret
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Troll. Troll in the dungeon.
I won't reply to you anymore.
The kind of help you need, I am afraid, is of a kind I am incapable of offering.
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The kind of help you need, I am afraid, is of a kind I am incapable of offering.
So it would seem!
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Thanks for your posts Sally- It seems as if reality is a concept too far for some!
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Thanks for your posts Sally- It seems as if reality is a concept too far for some!
I just feel sad, sad that history is being distorted like this into some kind of Hollywood fantasy and because in reality most Mary White/Wrights would have been labouring in the fields and far away from any gentry.
It just all seems to be plucked from thin air :-\
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Some remarks made on this thread are not within the spirit of RootsChat. Before it deteriorates any further, I have chosen to lock it.
wildwitch, if you have any further specific queries relating to to your ancestor, which RootsChatters might be able to help to answer, perhaps you might like to start a new topic on the appropriate board. :)
Thanks
Nell