John HENLEY or HENLY born c1811 in WOBURN

[waterfall]

I will go to Woburn churchyard and have a look. Is no big deal as a nice ride out and a churchyard I have often thought of looking at as well as the church. I have been round one at Woburn.....am not quite sure where it fits in. At that time was just looking.......is now behind the heritage centre.

Anyway G/son and I will give it a whirl this week.......weather permitting.

Susan

[silicondale]

Susan - that would be very generous of you, but I really ought to be doing this sort of legwork myself !  I never cease to be amazed at how helpful everyone is in the rootschat community (indeed in the family-history world more generally). - Steve

[waterfall]

Morning Steve,

no joy I'm afraid. Most of the headstones prior 1850 are so badly eroded as to be indecipherable. I would add however that there are only maybe two or three in the whole cemetery that give any detail as to who and what. Those are from wealthy families........... interesting of course.

The only 'Henley' headstone was for a Jethro Henley, husband of 'Louis'? who died April 10 1907 aged 70 years.

I don't know if BFHS have a MI inscription book.

Bye Susan

[silicondale]

Hi, Susan -  Many thanks for the effort. Interesting about Jethro. There is a Jethro in my tree but I thought he died very young. Will have to double-check that now! Not crucial as I think he was only a second cousin of John's.  - Steve

[silicondale]

Hello Susan - I thought you might like to know - big breakthrough today. Visited Bedfordshire records office (extremely helpful people there, as well as being lucky enough to meet a very knowledgeable archivist James Collett-White). On lookin gthrough the parish records, I found ANDREW ENDLEY born 1847, plus details of his children. They match up with Henleys recorded in later years. Also found his father - though only marriage, no birth record. It looks like most if not all of the Henleys fo Woburn were descended from this one person ! They're almost all related. many thanks for your lists which I took with me to check against the new data.

Also discovered (well James Collett-White found for me) an extremely interesting volume - the rates book for Woburn from 1802 to the 1830s with all property addresses, tenants, and owners listed. It would be well worth transcribing, but a major task ! Of course only the tenant, not the whole household, but more frequent than censuses as it seems to have been updated every two or three years. Unfortunately I had time only to scratch the surface of what it contained.
- Steve

[waterfall]

Hi Steve,

glad you had a successful trip. Never enough time to do all one wants and yes Beds CRO staff are really helpful. I expect they told you about their website......can be quite helpful but of course not all transcribed. On my last visit I think they said it stood at about 22% so a long way to go. Having said that I have found info relating to my spouses line so well worth looking. I know they hold papers for the
"Russells" of Woburn Abbey........another of my spouses line mentioned as working on the land and woods for 10/- per week.!!!!

Interesting to hear they have the rates book for Woburn, still it was a pretty big place and quite important due to the "Russells" etc. If you ever manage to pinpoint as to where your ancestors lived you stand quite a good chance that it is still there.

If you neen any lookups now that you seem to have sorted some out will do if local.

Bye Susan

[silicondale]

Many thanks for the offer, Susan - but I think the next step for me is likely to be slogging through reams of vouchers in the Russell archive to see if their furniture purchases/repairs etc mention William Henley by name. I wouldn't wish that sort of task on anybody.