Author Topic: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?  (Read 2712 times)

Offline clayton bradley

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #9 on: Thursday 14 December 17 21:13 GMT (UK) »
Reaney and Wilson have "Plaisted, Playsted, Plaster, Plested, from residence near a place for play. Chapel Plaster in Box (Wilts) was the home of John atte Pleistede in 1333." cb
Broadley (Lancs all dates and Halifax bef 1654)

Offline Ruskie

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #10 on: Thursday 14 December 17 22:36 GMT (UK) »
Check here for distribution of surnames:

http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org/

For starters Plaisted and Holmyard are included, though this is just a snapshot of a point in time and is likely to be different in different eras. I did not check other surnames/variations suggested as alternatives.  :)

Offline Rena

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #11 on: Thursday 14 December 17 22:44 GMT (UK) »
Reaney and Wilson have "Plaisted, Playsted, Plaster, Plested, from residence near a place for play. Chapel Plaster in Box (Wilts) was the home of John atte Pleistede in 1333." cb

I like this explanation of a surname that is derived from a place.  Rather unfortunate that many counties had such places.  I've got a similar descriptive surname of "Crum" which describes a piece of land at the crooked bend of a river - but which river?
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie:  Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke

Offline jillruss

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #12 on: Friday 15 December 17 13:03 GMT (UK) »
I think I'm sold on Plasted or Plaistow for Agnes - not that it helps to find her baptism. Certainly not in Hughenden, even allowing for Agnes aka Ann.

There are all sorts of possibilities for Holmyard, including the ones you listed, Bucksboy. I've even wondered about Harman, Hammond etc but, again, it hasn't helped me locate Katherine.

Sorry, but I can't see how you get Spigden from Sydenham!! I thought possibly Pigden or Piggot?, with the final 's' of Frances having been wrongly carried over to the surname?

I've checked and the one name of the above 3 which I have got the original PR entry for is Katherine Holmyard - and that's definitely what it says. I'm going to see if I can order the marriage entries for Plasthead (still can't get over the fact that a supposedly literate clerk could have actually writen that! Perhaps it proves the surname was 'foreign' to him and I should be looking further afield than Hughenden) and Spigden.

I'd almost prefer Smith or Jones!!!
HELP!!!

 BATHSHEBA BOOTHROYD bn c. 1802 W. Yorks.

Baptism nowhere to be found. Possibly in a nonconformist church near ALMONDBURY or HUDDERSFIELD.


Offline bucksboy

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #13 on: Friday 15 December 17 14:13 GMT (UK) »
I think I'm sold on Plasted or Plaistow for Agnes - not that it helps to find her baptism. Certainly not in Hughenden, even allowing for Agnes aka Ann.

There are all sorts of possibilities for Holmyard, including the ones you listed, Bucksboy. I've even wondered about Harman, Hammond etc but, again, it hasn't helped me locate Katherine.

Sorry, but I can't see how you get Spigden from Sydenham!! I thought possibly Pigden or Piggot?, with the final 's' of Frances having been wrongly carried over to the surname?

I've checked and the one name of the above 3 which I have got the original PR entry for is Katherine Holmyard - and that's definitely what it says. I'm going to see if I can order the marriage entries for Plasthead (still can't get over the fact that a supposedly literate clerk could have actually writen that! Perhaps it proves the surname was 'foreign' to him and I should be looking further afield than Hughenden) and Spigden.

I'd almost prefer Smith or Jones!!!

As for SPIGDEN to Sydenham.......nor can I.  Not a brilliant idea, but it does begin with S. ;D

I went through the names that start with an S, in Hughenden PR's.......nothing that comes close really.
I wonder if BucksFHS could to a baptism search for Frances SPIGDEN, and give as many variations you can think of.  You may get a result for surnames you'd never thought of.

The only problem with that, is the certainty that the surname begins with an S.  I have seen old manuscripts, where an F looks like an S, and vice versa. ???
Ives, Stevens, Allen, Smith, King, Wooster, Elwood from Monks and Princes Risborough, Aylesbury, Wendover, Great Missenden, Bledlow, Horsenden, Saunderton, West Wycombe, High Wycombe, Lacey Green, Longwick, Illmer,  Hughenden, Prestwood, The Kimbles, Haslemere, Bradenham, Aston Clinton and more......!!  Plus a whole host of Oxfordshire areas.
Graham, Pimlott, Burgess from Cheshire and Lancashire area.
Acknowledgemets to http://www.bucksfhs.org.uk/  and  http://www.ofhs.org.uk/

Offline jillruss

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #14 on: Friday 15 December 17 14:39 GMT (UK) »
Sorry - should have made it clear that its just the Plasthead (I'm warming to it!) marriage that took place in Hughenden - the Frances Spigden marriage was in Little Marlow 1679 and the Katherine Holmyard also in L Marlow in 1680.
HELP!!!

 BATHSHEBA BOOTHROYD bn c. 1802 W. Yorks.

Baptism nowhere to be found. Possibly in a nonconformist church near ALMONDBURY or HUDDERSFIELD.

Offline Redroger

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #15 on: Saturday 16 December 17 16:56 GMT (UK) »

So, imagine my surprise when I checked on the recently introduced Bucks Marriage Index on FindMyPast to find that Agnes had acquired a surname - PLASTHEAD!! Its not a real surname, is it?  :-

That's what I thought when I saw the surname of my like 3x great grandmother MEATYARD, but it exists, I have have a bearer of that surname several times, and have exchanged many emails with her.
I have discovered that for whatever reason (too many girls etc.) some surnames have become naturally extinct, however many became extinct or virtually so in the 19th century for reasons of "Victorian modesty" eg Pimp. Still exists, but I wonder if it would be classed as an occupational surname? ::)
Ayres Brignell Cornwell Harvey Shipp  Stimpson Stubbings (all Cambs) Baumber Baxter Burton Ethards Proctor Stanton (all Lincs) Luffman (all counties)

Offline artifis

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #16 on: Monday 18 December 17 15:23 GMT (UK) »
We tend to forget the effect of local dialects on spellings, imagine an 'educated' priest appointed to a village church many miles from his home parish confronted by surnames he'd never heard of before and illiterate people who had no idea how their surname was spelt - best guess probably based on what he did know.  Some parish records were also completed by the parish clerk if the priest wasn't always there or couldn't write for some reason, the parish clerk might not be that well educated himself - I came across that scenario in my home parish where the rector's handwriting deteriorated over a number of years to become all but illegible then subsequent entries were qualified by the comment completed by parish clerk until the rector died and a new incumbent was appointed.

I was brought up in a small village near Reading in the 1940s and when we visited relatives at Stow in the Wold and Battle in Sussex I had quite a job understanding the older people.  When a lad from Lancashire joined my junior school he all but spoke a different language to us and didn't understand us too well either.  This all changed as the 'standard' BBC language/spoken word took over.

Offline Redroger

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Re: Why am I plagued by cloth-eared parish clerks?
« Reply #17 on: Sunday 24 December 17 11:18 GMT (UK) »
Many years ago in the course of my work I had to interview a train driver at York. It became a very long interview as his Gateshead accent was as unintelligible to me as my mixture of Lincolnshire Yorkshire was to him.Everything had to be written down both questions and replies. Took over an hour to do 10 minutes work!!
Ayres Brignell Cornwell Harvey Shipp  Stimpson Stubbings (all Cambs) Baumber Baxter Burton Ethards Proctor Stanton (all Lincs) Luffman (all counties)