As Edward Morton and his family were Catholics, the key here is the Returns of Papists for Northumberland. There was a return of Catholics made in 1705 but the Northumberland return is very defective and in many cases only gives numbers and the return for Islandshire (North Durham) which includes Kyloe, Lowick, Holy Island, Norham and Ancroft is missing altogether. I inspected the original returns at the House of Lords archive and they are definitely not there. No Mortons appear anywhere in Northumberland which suggests that if there were any, they must have either been in North Durham, included somewhere else but only as part of an enumeration or not Catholics at that time.
Here's the return for Bamburgh as an example:
BALMEBROUGH
In ye parish of Balmbrough there's noe Papist or reputed Papist save, Eliz: Story - widdow of Newham a farm.
Char. Stoddart vicar
There was another return in 1767 and this is very good as it identifies all Catholics individually. There is only one family of Mortons and they are in Lowick, just next to Kyloe Parish.
They are:
Andrew Morton who was a mason, aged 55, Mary his wife, aged 53 and Andrew his son, aged 9. They were all born in the parish of Lowick (although not necessarily in the village of that name) which means that Andrew senior was born around 1712, Andrew and Mary would have been married somewhere around 1732 and Andrew Junior would have been born around 1758.
I have examined the parish registers of Lowick and there is no trace of the baptisms or marriage. That was because Roman Catholic children were baptised by the local priest and the details entered in his pocketbook, which was kept privately. The authorities liked to keep track of Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and other dissenters (hence the lists of dissenters’ births which can be found in some Anglican parish church registers) so the Catholic community preferred not to publicise their records.
The was at least one other son, William, who married Isabel Dixon at Rothbury on 30 May 1763. He was described as 'William Morton of the Parish of Lowick' and she was a Catholic as her birth is recorded in the list of Dissenters' births in the Rothbury parish register. Her father and siblings also appear in the Return of Papists for Rothbury in 1767. She does not, neither does William but I found them in the return for Great Ryle listed as:
'A Hind, His Wife and His Son’. How do I know that they are William and his family? Firstly, the age of his wife; she is 30 which means that she was born between September 1736 and September 1737 which matches exactly with the date of birth of Isabel on 25 August, 1737. Secondly, Isabel appears nowhere else in the returns, although her siblings are all named. Thirdly, whilst the baptisms of Catholics were not recorded in Anglican parish registers, their burials were. From the burials from Whittingham parish for the year 1772 I found that on August 12 was buried William son of William Morton of Great Ryle and there is no trace of a baptism for this child. William had another child (also called William) buried in nearby Whittingham on 20 March 1774.
So it appears that Andrew Morton the mason of Lowick appeared to have had at least two sons, William and Andrew (there may have been more children). William is my 5 x Great Grandfather and his son James Morton moved to South Shields in 1800 and was a butcher there. William's brother Andrew married Margaret Blacklock at Wooler
'4th of May 1779 This day were married by Banns duly published in this Parish Andrew Murton of the Parish of Lowick and Margaret Blacklock of this Parish in the presence of Robert Glahome and Marton Southren' - Wooler
Edward Morton's death was announced in the North & South Shields Gazette of 30 March 1850:
'Deaths: South Shields, at Price-street, on the 23rd inst., aged 63, Mr Edward Morton, trimmer'
In the 1841 census his age is given as 53 (even though ages were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest 5 years) so I think it's safe to assume that he was born around the years 1787/88. This would put Andrew Morton squarely in the frame to be Edward's father and given that he named his own son Andrew I think it's a fairly safe bet that Edward was the grandson of Andrew Morton the mason of Lowick. I have separately noted a list of all the Catholic parish register entries which I have involving the name Edward and it's fascinating to see the intertwining of the families as evidenced by the sponsors at the baptisms and the constant recurrence of the name Andrew (which is a fairly unusual Morton name and which always appears to lead back to the northern end of Northumberland. (continued in a separate post)
