Avica the mysterious woman

[JAP]

Valda,  RC needs a new emoticon - retires in total awe!!  SIMPSONs and MASTERSs in Harbury!  Shocked and/or Rolls Eyes just won't do!

What a wealth of information.  When (from the Antipodes) I return refreshed in the morning, I'll put my thinking cap on and see if I can make anything of all that information and whatever else might have been posted.  Incidentally, Valda, you spoke of other correspondence with Louise; me too but on my DALTON people and that's quite something else to be followed up.

The references for the Fifield registers that I found were on FamilySearch (place search for Fifield in the Family History Library) and via Genuki which led to the SOG at:
http://www.sog.org.uk/prc/oxford.html#F

Cheers, JAP

PS: 'Avica' shall I dream of you!

PPS: (Adding as I go but will stop now) Re use of father's name - I have in my family two illegitimate children being brought up in Kippen, Stirlingshire, Scotland by their mother (and/or grandmother) under their fathers' names (two different fathers - the mother's name MCLAUSE, the fathers' names ANDERSON and NIMMO).  The first child (a son b 1838) was always recorded as ANDERSON - baptism, censuses, marriage, births of his children, death; the second child (a daughter b 1842) was baptised as NIMMO, was in the 1851 census as NIMMO,  and died in 1859 (informant her ANDERSON half-brother) as MCLAWS.

[Valda]

Just to reel in the Martin family a little more
IGI baptisms at Southam Warwickshire for Edward Martin and Mary

William Henry 13th November 1835
Hannah 16th December 1836
Mary Ann 15th July 1838
Phoebe 6th June 1843

1851 census
HO 107 2077 folio 177
Coventry St Southam
Edward Martin Head Married 40 Baker born Southam
Emma Martin Daughter 11 born Southam
Phoebe Martin Daughter 7 born Southam

HO 2072 folio 614
24 Lansdowne St Leamington Priors Warwickshire
Mary Martin Head married 36 Baker born Southam
Henry Martin Son 16 born Southam
Mary Martin Daughter 13 born Southam
Eliz Martin Daughter 9 born Southam
Cath Martin Daughter 2 born Southam
Edward Martin Son 6 born Southam
Joseph Kite Servant 15 born Wooten wawen

HO 107 2067 folio 361
Warwick Row Coventry
Hannah Martin 14 House servant born Southam.

Regards
Valda

[LouiseB31]

Wow

I go offline for 36 hours and come back to find a whole host of new family members - I think I said before, I feel like the recipient of an August challenge.

I am thrilled, if not a little punch-drunk, this is going to take some sorting out.

Valda and Jap, you both deserve honours, I wasn't meaning to divide and rule, honest, you have both put in a whole lot of hours on this project and I am truly thankful. Someone once told me that if you have to make an acceptance speech you should never name names because inevitably someone vital doesnt get mentioned.

They dont actually do honours in rootschat as far as I know, so I am afraid you wont be getting anything, but I shall think of you as Dame Valda and Dame Judy from now on

Two initial questions;

Firstly how does one search a batch? I am presuming you are talking about the familysearch.org website containing the mormon indexes, known as IGI. I have been using this for years but didnt know you could search within a batch. I bet there's lots of things I could do on that site that I dont know about.

I am quite happy to get the fiche, although less sure where I would be able to view it, the technology is so far out of date I cannot think where there is a machine, but I will get it anyway.

The 1832 marriage entry is going to be so important, the possible information it could prove is immense. John Finch could be shown as a widow, therefore making it entirely possible that he is the husband of Hannah and the father of the early children, including Sam the sailor sergeant.

Avica (I instead on thinking of her with an A, having done so ever since I got the bastardy bond) could be shown as Avica Mary or Mary Avica, thus resolving the "Mary" on the census once and for all, and now she could be on the register as "Wilson nee Simpson" or "Wilson or Simpson".

The mind boggles but the entry I dont want is "John Finch married Avice Wilson both of Harbury October 1832" because that would be extremely unhelpful.

I dont have access to my database today so cannot say whether William Masters in Harbury is related to Stephen Masters of Staverton, except that I have always assumed he very likely is. I shall have to come back to you on that tomorrow.

So much to get my head round

Best wishes

Louise

[JAP]

Valda, you pointed out the christening of Mary Ann MASTERS in Harbury at age 14 in 1828, parents William MASTERS and Ann - an approximate birthdate (1814) which would fit with the issue of the marriage of William MASTERS and Hannah SIMPSON (1812).  Also the marriage of a Mary Ann MASTERS to an Edward MARTIN, and the fact that there were MARTIN children with William and Hannah MASTERS in the 1841 census.  Also with them was William MASTERS, 15 - who, Louise said earlier, might possibly have been Avice's son William WILSON or MASTERS.

Apologies if I'm repeating what has already been drawn specifically to everyone's attention (or seemed so obvious that it didn't need to be) namely that the 14 yo Mary Ann MASTERS (daughter of William MASTERS and Hannah SIMPSON) was christened on the same day as William WILSON or MASTERS, illegitimate son of Stephen MASTERS and Avice WILSON - 7 Mar 1828.

It certainly is looking as though William MASTERS in the 1841 was Hannah's grandson (William's step-grandson), and that 'Avica'/Mary WILSON later FINCH is the same as Avice SIMPSON.

Louise, re the IGI batches, just click on the batch number at the bottom of the detailed screen in the IGI.  The screen which then appears will have just the batch number and the region British Isles.  If you enter nothing more, and click on search, the complete batch will appear.  Then play around putting in as little or much information as possible and see how you go - the system soon complains if it doesn't like what you ask for!

JAP

 

[Valda]

A largish library should have a microfiche reader - any library with a local studies section will.

The Birmingham and Midland Genealogy Society don't seem to have transcribed Harbury parish registers, just the MIs.

If the Coventry marriage was by licence there will be an allegation in the record office. By 1832 you get very little detail on allegations, however you do get some.

I would contact Oxfordshire Record Office about potential Bastardy bonds in Fifield for the Simpson children.

Regards
Valda

[LouiseB31]

I still have not quite got my head round this.

Let me try, chronologically

This is our supposition;

A very young Hannah Simpson/Ann had baby John H Simpson baptised in Fifield in 1796

She then had baby Avice Simpson baptised in 1800

They may or may not have had the same father, but we could imagine that John's father was Mr Hayward and Avice's father was Mr Wilson.

Hannah/Ann then married William Masters in 1812 in Harbury. (The men of Harbury are obviously very stoical)

Mary Ann Masters was born circa 1814 although not baptised for another 14 years.

Avice Simpson/Wilson as we shall now call her, had an illegitimate son, William Wilson or Masters born in 1826. (Masters because of his father's name and Masters because of his mother's step-fathers name too? Wilson because of his mother's name which was probably her father's name - how complicated is that?)

1828 Mary Ann Masters and "William Wilson or Masters" are baptised together at Harbury church.

They are Aunt and Nephew, Mary Ann being Avica's half-sister.

In the 1841 census William Wilson/Masters is living with his grandparents. Mary Ann having already married Edward Martin by this time (1834), had a few children and then died or disappeared before that census.

Avica Simpson/Wilson has married John Finch in 1832 and is on the census as Mary Finch with three of their children.

So Avica is;

Avice Simpson when baptised
Avica Wilson on the bastardy bond
Avice Wilson at her wedding
variously Evice, Abitha and Avies Finch when registering her children's births or having them baptised and
Mary Finch on the census

Have I got that more or less right?

Let that be a warning to us all about making assumptions. Left entirely to my own devices I dont believe I would ever have found Mary Finch but I might have been tempted to go for the Avice Wilson baptised in Newark to William and Mary in 1803. That would have been a terrible mistake to make.

But who was to know that it was going to be a like an episode of a soap opera?

Best wishes
Louise

PS just adding a bit I forgot to say before. Clearly there was a new vicar or a new clerk in the period between 1836 and 1839 who was new to the parish. He didnt know Avica's name and thought he was being told "Abitha" which makes me think that she was called "A-veek-a" rather that "A-veese" otherwise he wouldn't have heard that sound. I am not sure that there is a mass of difference between Evica and Avica to the human ear, the stress being on the "eek" sound.

[Valda]

I don't have access to the 1841 census, so I don't know where the Martin parents were, but they were certainly alive on the 1851 census with an ever growing number of children (see my details on the Martins in 1851).

Because of the tightness of age for Ann Simpson and the first known appearance in Fifield of an illegitimate Simpson (and I'm not really sure what happened to him and if that 1861 census for Fifield was him, why did he stay and his mother and sister leave for Harbury of all places?) I'd rather you checked the Fifield registers. If there are any more Simpson illegitmate births before John Hayward Simpson then it calls into question the mother daughter relationship, though there certainly must be a relationship.
It would just be good to have a clearer picture of what is going on in Fifield including the burials and any potential bastardy bonds.

I have found one further Simpson event in Fifield which indicates there may have been a family there.

JAMES SIMPSON 
Spouse:  ELIZABETH BRAIN 
Marriage:  10 JAN 1802   Fifield By Burford

No idea what happened to them.
 
I'm not sure the attraction of male stoicism alone, is a good enough reason to move from Fifield to Harbury.

Regards
Valda

[LouiseB31]

A couple of further points;

Searching through the batch for Harbury, now that I know how to, I have noticed that the “good people” of Habury must have really got religion on March 7th 1828 for there are others baptised that day.

There is for example the delightfully named Jabish Jeffts aged 9 and Ellen Jeffts, with their parents Jonas Jeffts and Eliza Jeffts. They were all baptised together.

Perhaps baptisms were on special offer that day, or maybe there was a fever raging and people wanted to be baptised just in case?

Having re-read the census returns from Valda properly this time, I wonder why Mary (Ann) Martin was not living with her husband but separately in a different town? I see they are both bakers, perhaps they worked at separate bakeries, but it seems rather a pity.

I will of course check the Fifield registers Valda, I will be ordering the bishop’s transcript on fiche this week and making enquiries about bastardy bonds. To answer your query about the pull of Harbury, maybe William Masters met the young Miss Simpson and her children on a visit to Fifield and persuaded her to marry him and come to live in Hungry Harbury, away from the twitching net curtains. Perhaps young John H Simpson at then 12 years old got a job on a farm somewhere locally and so didn’t go with them?

I am busy playing with batch number searches now, great fun

Louise

[JAP]

It will be great if Valda's suggestion of bastardy bonds for Fifield produces more information.  This is a whole new area for me; not that my ancestors were all married and legitimate - anything but!  However, I've not been aware of bastardy bonds heretofore.

And it will be great if the marriage entry yields something - though, like Valda, I fear not.

Louise, another trawl through the Harbury parish registers, armed with all the new found knowledge, might be worthwhile in case there are some clues (witnesses, sponsors, occupations, places of residence, etc)?

Re a possible relationship between William MASTERS (husband of Hannah SIMPSON) and Stephen MASTERS (father of William, the illegitimate son of 'Avica').

Was Stephen of Staverton, or born/baptized there?  I'm not abreast of this.

However, I see that a Pedigree Resource File on FamilySearch thinks that a Stephen MASTERS was bap 1801 in Budbrooke, Warwickshire, son of Job MASTERS and Ann HORTON.  And that this Stephen had an Ellen MASTERS in 1830 with Elizabeth ZYKE whom he married in Dec 1827, and a William WILSON with Evica WILSON (it gets off the tracks here as it has William b 1825 and dying on 7 Mar 1828!!).

But, if Budbrooke is right, I could make (make up?) a relationship between William and Stephen from extracted entries in the IGI - making Stephen the 1st cousin once removed of William (though William's 1841 age would be a problem).

Staverton, Northants, unfortunately doesn't seem to be indexed into the IGI as part of the controlled extraction program - though there are LDS patron submissions which are very detailed and likely to be reliable.  And Staverton records are listed in the Family History Library Catalogue on FamilySearch - and available on film.

Regards,

JAP
PS: Louise, it didn't occur to me to look at all the other 7 Mar 1828 baptisms - now you've punctured a big hole in the balloon I had inflated about its significance re William and Mary Ann