Northiam Parish Records-TREE

[judt]

Hi Nelle

It's a shame you're only in Hastings for a short time, but probably no matter how long you had there it would never be enough.  I was in the UK for 8 weeks a couple of years ago, driving from Sussex/Kent, Wiltshire/Gloucestershire, North Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Essex, and TNA in Kew, but I only scratched the surface.  If you're driving in the UK I strongly suggest setting up a GPS to take with you, especially if you're on your own.  If you download maps to a smartphone you won't need a data connection.

I have the Daniel who married Mary Boots listed as the uncle of Griffiths Tree (ie, a first cousin of your Daniel Tree).  It's therefore feasible that the uncle witnessed the marriage of Griffiths Tree and Elizabeth King, except that by 1833 Daniel had 8 children and was living in Bodiam (and the wedding was in Rye).  I was interested in you 'killing off' William and Martha which could explain the links between your Daniel and the William & Elizabeth Tree family and put your Daniel as the witness. 

William Tree / Mary Attison is the limit for me as well.  The online Northiam bishop's  transcripts in FamilySearch start at 1606, so if he was baptised there it should be possible to track him down.  However, it's highly likely that he was baptised in another parish, or in Kent, if at all.  What is the starting date for the online database of baptisms and burials that you have access to?


Regards

Judy

[nellesayshi]

Hi Judy

The starting date is around 1549 I think.  I did a full Sussex search on all William Trees and Wm Trees for the dates of 1690 to 1720 and could not find anything, and also looked at every single Tree, Atree, Attree, Ate and Atee for Northiam, Ewhurst and Brede baptism records.  There is a bit more scope for searching yet within the burials and other towns so not giving up yet!

Martha's burial is recorded as 28 June 1799 in Northiam and is noted as 'w William', would the w stand for Widow?  Or With?  Either way when double checking I could not find William (Martha's husband) burial which is strange as I could have sworn I noted it earlier.  Other family Trees indicate a burial around 1796, but I will keep looking until I find the proper record.  Daniels baptism is recorded as 18 November 1798 and he was the last child born to William and Martha.

Will see if I am up for a bit more searching after I finish work today

Regards

Nelle

[nellesayshi]

Hi Judy

Found William, he was under the name of Attree.  William Attree, buried 1 August 1796 in Brede.  I have found quite a few instances within the family line of both spellings, especially with regards to children.  It is listed as an alias within many of the birth entries for the family.

So, if Daniel was baptised 18 November 1798, and with William's death 2 years earlier it looks like Martha might have been in mourning for a bit, or perhaps her own ill health (as she was buried 28 June 1799 age 40+) delayed the baptism.  The previous child was born 8 May 1796 and was another William, so Dad passed around 3 months after the birth of the second last child.

It would have been tough for the family with 9 surviving children under the age of 18 when Martha passed. 

Nelle

[judt]

Hi Nelle

I've been going through the Northiam bishop's transcripts and found Martha's death record.  She's listed as 'wife of Wm', so I assume that William was still alive at that time as numerous other women were listed just as 'widow'.  She was buried a couple of days after James Tree, an infant (age 3/4, which I assume is 9 months).  Can't find his baptism in Northiam, and these incidents may not be related.  It would be very coincidental if they weren't.

I think the 1796 William Tree record you saw was the baptism of the son of William and Martha, not a burial.  The Northiam records show a burial of William Tree of Beckley, age 74, on 8 Feb 1820.  This age makes his birth very close to the 1744 baptism for William Tree, and Beckley is only about 2 miles from Northiam.

Hope this all makes sense.  It gets very confusing, especially with all the similar names.


Regards

Judy

[nellesayshi]

Hi Judy

1 August 1796 in Brede is definitely a burial record, but your theory is quite likely as William and Martha had a son baptised in Northiam on 8 May 1796, and William and Elizabeth had a child baptised as William Attree on 12 January 1794 also in Northiam, so it could be either of them, more likely the latter.

I found the burial record for William Tree of Beckley in the SFHG records... but strangely not in the Northiam or Beckley files.  I did a targeted full database search for William Tree in 1820 and there it was, clearly listed as Northiam, but not in the file.  Beats me.  It does make more sense though with Daniels baptism in 1798.

On that note I *might* have found our Grandfather William's birth record.  There is a William Attree born in Westfield (another town close by) baptised 6 May 1705 to parents William Attree and Mary Thomas, married Westfield 24 April 1704.  Just to be even more confusing with generational identification they also had a son John Attree baptised 9 April 1707. 

I found another William Tree born in Cranbrook, Kent on 28 April 1690 and baptised 10 June 1690 to parents Francis and Margaret.  Even though its close in location I don't think this is our William as it would make him 47 at the birth of his first child.  William Attree would be 32, much more likely.

Didn't find any other William Trees or Attree variants in the time span 1690 to 1720 in this general location though.

What do you think?

Regards

Nelle

[judt]

Hi Nelle

I found the birth of William in 1794 in the bishop's transcripts.  It's listed there as William Tree, but with a small notation underneath which looks like 'also Attree'.  If the original parish records show the baptism as Attree, my assumption is that the person who performed or wrote up the parish records was a temporary relief unfamiliar with the locals (possibly from Westfield), but the person who transcribed for the bishop's transcripts was a local and knew the Tree family.  Whether the Tree and Attree families are related will be hard to determine, but the 1705 baptism for William Attree seems appropriate.

As I do not have access to the databases on the SFHG website, I can't say why William's 1820 burial doesn't seem to be there.  Databases are very handy, but they don't cover everything. I like to go to the original as well.  I'm now also seeing the benefit of viewing the bishop's transcripts as well as the original parish records, although only the bt are online at familysearch.  Ordering the film of the Northiam parish records is on my list....

Your comment about the William Tree at Cranbrook is interesting.  He could actually be the grandfather of our William Tree.  Or, our family may be his second (or third...) family.  The classic example for this is Daniel James Tree, first child born to Charlotte Manning and Daniel Tree in 1852 when Daniel was about 54.

In your searches of the database on the SFHG site, have you come across baptisms for Adeline and Edwin Tree, or any other children on Daniel?  Or a 2nd marriage in England? 

Will let you know if I find anything.


Regards

Judy

[nellesayshi]

Hi Judy

When I triple checked the SFHG database for Northiam burials I did find the 1820 death for William after all, so it was either operator failure (more likely) or an inconsistent data retrieval search programming error.  More likely it was me, but I will watch and see if any other instances.

Its interesting to note that our young William Attree (1794) was the one we thought may have been the William Attree death in 1796 in Brede.  If they are related, he would have been the grandson of the Westfield William Attree (1705) with the elder dying possibly in 1786 also in Brede (Recorded burial in Brede William Attree 5 January 1786).  I am wondering if William the younger was named for his Grandfather.  Within the SFHG records William the younger was recorded both in the Attree name section and in the Tree section with each name as an alias to the other.  Attree was also recorded in both instances (Grandfather and Grandson) as both birth and burial names.

I think I found other instances of the Attree alias, but I will double check.  It may have just been William the younger that I wrote in a couple of places.

Another thing that I noticed, the other William who was buried in 1820 of Beckley was likely to have relocated there from Northiam to live with or near his oldest son Henry.  Henry has records of two children born in Beckley, Thomas 1805 and Martha 1812 with wife Elizabeth.  Henry was born in Northiam to William and Martha. 

It could be possible that Cranbrook William may be the Grandfather instead of Westfield William Attree also, if it was a second family.  I am leaning towards Westfield William though as the Attree name and location of the Grandson pulls the strands closer.  Will dig some more around this and see if I can find anything further on either William.

I didn't come across any other baptisms at all for Daniel's children, or other marriages in England.  I only found the Maryann Celia one in Kent, same as you.  He definitely does not have a marriage listed in the Sussex database.  I also had a good look to see if I could find any baptisms for Griffess/Griffiths but no luck there either.  I did find his marriage record though.

Now, getting back to the Attree link, and a fun little side track I went down... I did just a generic Google search on 'Attree name origin'.  The more boring explanation was something like 'He lives at the Tree', but an alternative and more interesting explanation was that it was actually derived from the old English 'atta reid' (from the clearing) or atta rie (from the river bank... or something similar).  It turns out the town name of Rye is also derived from rie, or the (river) bank.  Given the close proximity of our locations to Rye, I am thinking the name Attree (whether our or not) quite literally means At Rye, or Of Rye.  The earliest recorded instance of the name was for John ate Reghe of Sussex in 1287.  So, even if not relevant for our family I still found it quite interesting.

Another thing I noticed is the male line tends to live well into their 80's.  Its a healthy lot (if they survive infancy).

Regards

Nelle.

[judt]

Hi Nelle

Your info regarding the derivation of the name Tree was interesting and could explain why it's so popular around Rye. 

This brings me to another theory on the missing baptism for Griffiths/Griffess Tree.  According to his obituary in the Methodist newspaper, he was born a couple of months after the burial of his father, William Tree.  Griffiths and Elizabeth married in Rye, and I think it's possible that the Tree family moved to Rye after William's death.  Possibly they became Wesleyans there, with the King family.  I know the Tree family in NSW were very committed Wesleyans, and Elizabeth's brother, James Kelsey King, is buried in the Old Wesleyan area of Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney, so maybe Griffiths was never baptised in an Anglican church. 

Or he may have been baptised in a church in or near Rye that hasn't been indexed yet, or he records were lost, or his record is unreadable....

Elizabeth apparently marrying Richard Hicks in Northiam throws a bit of a spanner in my theory of the move to Rye.  Then again, Richard was also from Northiam I think.

It's possible the William Tree/Attree son of William and Elizabeth was the one who died in Brede, but I'm still fairly certain that this William is the brother of Griffiths, the first son of William and Elizabeth (Ashdown).  In those days it was fairly common for first children to be named after the parent of the same sex and there doesn't appear to be another William in the family.  I haven't tried to research many of the other children of William and Elizabeth, mainly because of a lack of certainty.  Will see what I can find in the bt on FamilySearch.

You appear to be making a lot of use of the SFHG database.  Have you been subscriber for long? 


Regards

Judy

[nellesayshi]

Hi Judy

I have only been a subscriber of the SFHG for about a month, but I must say I do like it.  There are thousands of records, and you can search either by name and date or by parish.  Some parishes have multiple churches and it lists them separately.  Within each church record you can sort the data in alphabetical or date order.  When you do a straight name search on the master index it brings up a list of parish folders where the individuals are recorded, but you really need to have a narrow focus on the search or you get too many records.  With regards the baptism records in most cases it does give the names of the parents, and so I can confirm that William Attree born 1794 was definitely the first registered baptism to William Tree and Elizabeth (no surname given for mothers).

Also, the Wesley Church at Rye is in the database!  I have looked for Griffess there but had no luck finding him.

These are the births I have for this family (William and Elizabeth Ashdown)

William Attree - 12 January 1794 - Northiam
David Tree - 22 May 1796 - Northiam
Mary Tree - 10 November 1799 - Northiam
James Tree - 27 November 1803 - Northiam (buried 22 May 1823)
Charles Tree - 2 March 1806 - Northiam.  Married Eliza Lawrence.  Charles buried 17 January 1772, Eliza buried 12 August 1862 aged 52.

I am missing the births for Griffess in 1808 and Edward in 1812 that I saw in an earlier message... but then, I wasn't looking for Edward, only Griffess.  I will try looking for Edward, as that may give a hint as to where Griffess may be!

Then for William Tree and Martha I have:

baptised Northiam:

Elizabeth Tree - 14 May 1780
Henry Tree - 29 Dec 1782 - buried 11 March 1860 - married Elizabeth Upton 14 December 1804
Maria and Elizabeth Tree - twins - 5 December 1784
Thomas Tree - 4 June 1786 - buried 22 April 1793
Jane Tree - 8 June 1788
Delia Tree - 30 May 1790
Martha Tree - 3 Feb 1793
William Tree - 8 May 1796
Daniel Tree - 18 November 1798

baptised Ewhurst

Hannah Tree - 4 March 1781 (so child number 2)

For William Tree and Mary Attison I have (all in Brede):

Mary - 8 May 1737
John - 4 Feb 1738/39 (Around this time a lot of these split dates started showing.  I don't know why, maybe a ledger that spanned multiple years?)
Sarah - 16 August 1741 - buried 19 September 1742
Daniel - 16 August 1747
William - 24 June 1744

I have tried to find your Bishops Transcripts on Family Search, but it is either not showing for me or I am looking in the wrong place.  Where do you go to find this?  All I found was a page saying that there were microfiche available from the LDS.

Regards

Nelle