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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Buckinghamshire => Topic started by: lucymags on Sunday 22 April 18 09:38 BST (UK)
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I'm helping a friend out with this one, and not sure where to go next.
I have Thomas (b.1807) Byway who marries Rachael West (b.1803) on 12 May 1835, followed later that year by the birth of their daughter Martha Ann, and their son Thomas and another daughter Mary appear on the census records up to 1861 in Stoke Goldington. (This is probably Thomas' death record: BYAWAY, THOMAS (age) 62; GRO Reference: 1869 D Quarter in NEWPORT PAGNELL Volume 03A Page 362.)
Going up Thomas' line, the only birth which seems to tally with census age and birthdate seems to be a baptism on 22 Mary 1807 (birth 5 Feb), to William and Alice - variously transcribed Byaway and Byerway as well as Byway. There are also sisters Martha (30 Jan 1803) and Ann (01 Aug 1804).
These baptisms are all recorded at The Great Meeting Independent, Newport Pagnell. Currently having access to Ancestry, I have obtained Thomas' handwritten baptism entry, which looks more like Byerway than Byway (but the parents most likely illterate, it was no doubt up to the scribe to guess at the spelling).
I can't find anything further in indexed records for William or Alice. I the header for a record on FindMyPast from the Buckinghamshire Banns Index, location Newport Pagnell, for a William Byway in 1803 - but I think that this must relate to a William who married Elizabeth Sutton on 03 Jul 1803 (in FamilySearch).
FamilySearch seems to have various church records available for Bucks., but what church is this Independent one? Any ideas on how to find out more about William and Alice?
Possible red herrings: - an Ancestry user tree has Thomas' parents as a couple who marry in Cranfield, Beds. in 1797, but this doesn't sound likely, as she (Alice Odell) was 26 and this William Byway would have been 19 - and then only have children 6+ years later in Bucks?
- There are some Byways in Shenley (a William around Thomas' age, I think), but last time I was looking could not find a relationship there.
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There are these in Posse Comitatus 1798. Shenley Brook End is just a few miles from Newport Pagnell.
p. 203
Shenley Brook End
John Byway, servant
p. 204
Shenley Brook End
William Byway, labourer
p. 301
Bow Brickhill
Charles Byway, labourer
p. 301
Bow Brickhill
James Byway, labourer
http://www.bucksrecsoc.org.uk/BRS-VOLUMES/brs-vol-22.pdf
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Hi lucymags,
Although not wanting throw any spanners in the works. There is a marriage in SG on 20 Sep 1790 between William Byway and Mary Barfoot. Given that the witnesses at Thomas' wedding to Rachel were Catherine West and Thomas Barfoot there may be a connection.
Regards
Peter
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A possibility for William: in Family Search there's a William Byway, born 1771 in Salford Beds, the son of Thomas Byway and Elizabeth. That's just on the other side of Milton Keynes.
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Ah - thanks very much to both of you, Vance and Peter.
That Posse Comitatus is an interesting document in itself, having never encountered one of those before! (I could easily get distracted reading it and about it. :) )
And hmmm, now that you mention it, Peter, I think I came across that Mary Barfoot (and possibly a baptism of a child of that marriage) before, but hadn't noticed the connection to those witnesses.
I will dig deeper into all of those names and report back...
And as I was typing, your further post about that William too, Vance - thanks. I will investigate and see if I can find further clues.
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There are quite many of the Bucks Record Society volumes available online:
http://www.bucksrecsoc.org.uk/publications.html
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Given that the witnesses at Thomas' wedding to Rachel were Catherine West and Thomas Barfoot there may be a connection.
Just going back to my records and notes and getting them organised... I find that I don't have access to that actual marriage record (FS parish records are only available at LDS centre, and Ancestry doesn't have it), so wouldn't have seen the witnesses. Do you have a publicly available source, or did you find this by other means? (And oddly enough there's a Rachel West who marries a Thomas West in SG 14 years earlier - presumably a different one.)
I noted on another thread that the Bucks FHS does searches and just had a look - presumably they would send a PDF of the search result? - so that is another option.
There are quite many of the Bucks Record Society volumes available online:
http://www.bucksrecsoc.org.uk/publications.html
Thanks for that - looks interesting!
(I'll be back once I've made some progress - doing a bit of multi-tasking at the moment!)
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Yes. BucksFHS can do a search for a single named person, for a single event. ie. £1 per search, for each event(Marriage, Baptism or burial), for a 100 year period in between the years of 1538 to 1901.
Or, a single surname search, for all events, for a total of £9, per 100 year period, from 1538 - 1901.
Searches are done by expert volunteers, and results are in PDF format, sent via email. Response with results will not be immediate, and may take up to 1 week, or sooner.
Steve. :)
Steve. :)
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Thanks for that Steve. :)
Unfortunately real life has intervened and I don't think that I can get back to this until tomorrow. I have followed some tantalising threads (getting somewhat distracted by independent churches, links to Beds., other interesting doco, etc.) but haven't got to the point of trying to assemble what I have and see which pieces fit best yet. Once I've done that I might send off to the FHS to see if there are clues in some records which add to the likelihood of the various relationships having existed.
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Given that the witnesses at Thomas' wedding to Rachel were Catherine West and Thomas Barfoot there may be a connection.
Do you have a publicly available source, or did you find this by other means?
I got the info from FindMyPast.
Peter
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Oh, thanks for that, Peter. I don't have access to those records at the moment.
I have just returned to this and am continuing to build up my notes, and once I have worked out the most likely candidates, I think I'll order some records from the Bucks FHS, which might offer further clues. In the meantime I'll make a note of those names.
It's possible that William married Mary first and then Alice, I suppose, but I need to explore this a bit further to see if I can dig up anything else. (There's also a William B. of Shenley who marries Elizabeth Sutton but I don't think there's a Thomas born to them.)
One thing I have just been following up on, and can now answer my own question about, is that the Great Meeting Independent is definitely what has now morphed into the United Reformed Church in Newport Pagnell. (A bit of history here: http://www.urcnewportpagnell.org/page17.html.) Thomas Byway's baptism record is signed by Thomas Palmer Bull, son of William Bull. So that is one small mystery solved.
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Just to return to this for the interest of everyone who helped...
Having spent far too many hours on it, I still only have a likely scenario, but obtained a few more hints from various records from Bucks FHS and also found volumes of transcribed of Beds. parish records, Cranfield here: https://archive.org/details/bedfordshirepari27bedf
William Byway was possibly born 1755 in Bow Brickhill or North Crawley - the only possible records in Bucks. And I think he probably did first marry Mary Barfoot in SG in 1790 and have daughter Elizabeth in 1791. I got all excited when I saw on an FindMyPast header record that a Mary Byway was buried in Cranfield in 1797 (which would have led nicely to William marrying Alice Odell in August of the same year), but Bedford parish transcript above shows a Mary w. of Thomas Byway (labourer) dying in that year, the same year as their son dies, so that can't be Mary Barfoot. :-(
However, the William who marries Alice in Cranfield is a widower, so there's a good chance it's the same one who married Mary B, lacking any other records contradicting this. I've traced Alice Odell's parents, and also found that Alice Byway remarries in SG after William's death, to a William Parkins, and there's a Thomas Chapman who is a witness at William's marriage to Mary Barfoot as well as Alice's marriage to Wm Parkins.
So unless I come across any contradictory evidence, I am going to stick to this story. It's a shame I can't find a definite death record for first wife Mary Byway, and it would be interesting to find how the Thomas and Mary Byway couple in Cranfield are connected to the Bucks lot, but this is as far as I'm going with this one.
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Can anyone see the record from Bucks Burials (I can see the header on FindMyPast but nothing else) for William Byway who died in SG in 1808?
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Hi Lucymags,
The entry contains the following info and is taken from the BTs not the original register
Burial date ? Jan 1808
Relative's relationship Husband of Alice Byway
HTH
Peter
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Ah, great, thanks Peter. That confirms that he was Alice's husband, so that gives some certainty to this record. :)
And possibly adds weight to the 1755 BB birth, although at this point have no way of knowing for sure. The 1755 William seems to match this marriage (from Bucks FHS):
15 Nov William 1778 William X BYWAY, bachelor of Bow Brickhill - Elizabeth X LAMBLEY, spinster of this parish
Witnesses: Thos Pettit, John Goodman. Banns
It's even possible that he had 3 marriages... but I can't see a death for an appropriate Elizabeth, at least on FS. (And the only births for parents William and Elizabeth are at Shenley, and seem to all have the surname "Byways".) I'll follow up this line at some point later when I have more time.