CORNWELL from Bottisham

[mrs_orrell]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for reviewing your records I've been lost in the descendants of John Day and Mary Lemon - my great uncle has a surprising number of DNA matches where they are the MRCA considering they are so far back in the tree. So my Cornwell stuff has been a little pushed to the side...

You'll have to forgive me here as my Cornwell research at this point is all over the place. And also not in my main tree. So you think Wm Cornwell buried 1743 is the husband of Sarah Blacklock? And Sarah then married Henry Scott in 1746 and had at least two children, Henry, born 1747 and baptised 1785 and Martha born 1749 baptised 1809. Sarah died 1781. Henry married Grace Cornwell 1770. Do you have a birth for Sarah as I note on Ancestry other researchers are split between 1700 Cambridge and 1712 St. Ives? None with any sources of course. Other than "Ancestry tree".

Have you uncovered the baptisms for William Cornwell & Eliz Tyrell's children? I'd just like to see them to try to work out which William he is. I am sure they all funnel into the same family if you go back far enough. I want to be as sure as I can be on our William's parentage by looking at all available evidence and am currently unsure as to whether I have seen all the available evidence... I'm also super hesitant to accept what everyone else accepts as I've seen this happen before on other lines in my tree (not that I am saying you are wrong!). In one particular instance parentage was attributed based on a marriage (date and place given in every tree) that doesn't actually appear in the register. As it's in Gloucestershire there are scans of the register pages available on Ancestry so I know it is definitely not there! In this instance people have traced on back to Richard the Lionheart's right hand man and they do not want to give this up despite a vital link in their trees simply not appearing in the records... So this is why I like to chat to other researchers, as they will invariably have come across something I haven't.

So the Sarah Blacklock development is interesting and I will look further into it. I am assuming then that you believe it possible (some or all of) the children of William Cornwell and Sarah Blacklock were brought up by grandparents as the eldest will only have been 12 when William Sr died.

This is an interesting blog post:
https://morgansite.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/not-only-fools-and-horses-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98scotch-chapmen%E2%80%99-in-england-1660-1800/

The author concludes that Nelson Blacklock ran away to join the navy after forging land deeds (which must relate to the documents redroger and I are ploughing our way through!). But she also states they were most probably of Scottish origin. I do have Scottish ethnicity... Not sure how much weight we should give that though!

More anon but must make dinner

Karen (not Mrs Orrell - we are family Peter!!)

[mrs_orrell]

Haha, found:
England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973

Name:   Mary Bolton
Gender:   Female
Marriage Date:   1 May 1711
Marriage Place:   Dry Drayton,Cambridge,England
Spouse:   Bleaklock
FHL Film Number:   873639

So 1700 Cambridge birth for Sarah definitely incorrect.

However, licence states married at Magdalene? And an Ann Bolton is supposedly also married there the same year. by lic, but it does not appear on the Cambs Marriage Licence CD. There are only BTs on Family Search for Dry Drayton and they don't include any marriages for 1711. So what is the Magdalene connection that they could marry there (if they did)? Were there conditions for marrying there then?

[Peter Cornwell]

Karen,
Yes, I do believe that William CORNWELL, the husband of Sarah (BLACKLOCK), was that returned from Barnwell for burial at Fulbourn (SV) on 31 Aug 1743. Along with Christopher Ruff, his brother-in-law, he was a trustee of Richard Wright's Clock Land, an endowment for the maintenance & repair of the clock, bells & steeple of St Vigor's Church and as such, he is named in a lease/release of land dated 26/27 November 1735. He was assessed for Fulbourn rates on 29 Aug 1738 and, on 6 Dec the same year, he received a 'constable's rate' of 7/9d from the Geoffrey Bishop's Charity at All Saints, Fulbourn. On 29 Nov 1741, the same charity also paid him an 'overseer's rate' of 11/4d. Significantly, he does not appear as a 'surviving trustee' on the next feoffment of land for Richard Wright's Clock Land dated 7 April 1755, which suggests to me that it was indeed him buried in 1743. 

You have the advantage of me with the death of Sarah SCOTT in 1781. I have no note of this so details would be most welcome. I have her birth as c.1714 and (BLAKLOCK) baptism on 26 Feb 1714 at Newport Pagnall, Bucks., the daughter of Andrew BLACKLOCK & Mary (BOLTON). We already knew that her family held land there so this seems safe enough although her exact origins start to look increasingly complicated. Thanks for the blog link. It is highly plausible that Nelson BLACKLOCK ‘did a runner’ into the RN under an assumed name but I have no knowledge of any Scottish origins for his family.

Neither do I know of any children to William CORNWELL & Elizabeth (TYRELL). He was first cousin once removed to the William who married Sarah BLACKLOCK and their lines converge with John CORNEWELL (1658-1718) of Fulbourn - my six-times Great Uncle. 

For sure, things would have been difficult for Sarah following the death of William in 1743 with three (or four?) children to raise. But only two of them were still babies, she was fairly comfortably placed, with good family support network on hand, so the three years until her second marriage could have been far worse. I think it unlikely that the CORNWELL grandparents were directly involved in raising the children as grand-father Richard had died ten years earlier.

Unfortunately, I can offer no guidance on any possible connection between Dry Drayton and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Quite a poser.

[Derek-Glover]

I am related to William Cornwell and Sarah Blacklock