NORMAN / BAGSHOT 1780s - twins?

[johking]

I'm not familiar with the Somerset records and am wondering about the children of George NORMAN and Ann BAGSHOT (later known as Bagehot), as found on FreeReg. https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/5c2e99cd33045bea0ba4a52a

Our old family tree, which was "tidied up" in the 1930s, records the births to this couple as:
George [1782]
William [no date]
Charles [1783]
Priscilla [1785]
Maria [1785]
Alfred [1792]
Sarah [no date]

However, from FreeReg, does it appear to you that Ann Bagshot had TWO sets of twins in 1782 and 1783? Quite a start to child-rearing!

Or is there any possibility that children were "saved up" to be baptised later than their birth date? Have you ever come across that? According to FreeReg, the marriage was actually in 1776, with no record of baptisms before 1782.

Thanks very much!

Jo

[BumbleB]

Looking at the images for the parish records (Ancestry) :

June 1783 - September 1783 - there are 8 baptisms, only two of them are for single children, the other 6 entries are split between 3 families.  There is no indication on the register that any of them are twins.  Again there is no indication of twins in 1782.

It was not uncommon for children to be baptised in "batches".

[johking]

Oh, that's very interesting, thanks so much, and makes much more sense than the twins notion.

According to the tree, Ann BAGEHOT was daughter of Rev Watson BAGEHOT, Rector of Langport, so it looks as though the batch baptisms happened even with close links to the ministry.

[Andrew Dunn]

I am looking at the same tree right now! Ann Bagehot's father was Thomas Bagehot, her mother being  Priscilla Ostler. Ann's brother was Robert (Codrington) Bagehot and it was Robert that married Mary Watson, so I am not sure why the Norman family tree says "Rev Watson Bagehot"

I also just found this regarding Thomas (from a document on the history of Langport)

Thomas Bagehot was trained in the nonconformist ministry and is supposed to have established a Socinian chapel in North Street at some date after 1747, attended by many of the borough's leading inhabitants

With a name like JohKing, looking at George Norman and Ann Bagehot, I guess you got there via John King (1799-1859) and his wife Anne Catherine Norman (1817-1876) - they are my 3rd great grand parents

I wonder what your version of the King "origin" story is ... I'm not convinced that John King and Captain Kell King were the same brothers as Dr John King (the other John King's grandfather) and his brother Francis King

Regarding the Norman family, at the top of the tree there's John Norman (1623-1668), the vicar of Bridgewater and his second wife Elizabeth Blake. John Norman is said to be a brother-in-law to Admiral Robert Blake (1598–1657), Robert never married but "Robert Blake was the first son of thirteen children born to Humphrey and Sara"

Here's a link to a PDF Blake family tree at the Bridgewater Museum
https://www.bridgwatermuseum.org.uk/museum-collections/index_htm_files/Blake_2.pdf
At the very bottom left shows Sarah Blake and Ann Blake = John Norman

[Andrew Dunn]

The Blake family tree suggests that it was Anne Blake that married John Norman
Anne was a daughter of Robert Blakes' brother, Humphrey Blake

There is evidence of Robert Blake, his brother Humphrey and John Norman all being involved in Bridgwater religion

Humphrey and Robert Blake and the town's recorder, Sir Thomas Wroth, were members of the (Presbyterian) classis in 1647, and John Norman, vicar 1647-60, was associated with a Presbyterian meeting from 1662

The Norman family tree shows John Norman as having married 1) Alleine and 2) Elizabeth Blake

The Dictionary of National Biography has this to say

He (John Norman) was the bosom friend of Joseph Alleine, the ejected vicar of Taunton, whose sister Elizabeth seems to have been his first wife. Norman was probably the 'Pylades' to whom Alleine, under the signature 'Orestes,' wrote a very remarkable 'Letter from Bath' on 12 Oct. 1668, smoothing over some 'jealous passages' which had occurred between the writer and his old friend and 'covenant Pylades' (Life of Alleine, 1822, p. 432, letter xxxvii.)

Is it possible that the Norman family tree got the details wrong, after all Elizabeth Alleine is only referred to as Alleine and the Blake tree suggests that it was Anne Blake, not Elizabeth Blake

The Dictionary of National Biography also states

He (John Norman) died at Bridgwater, and was buried at St. Mary's on 9 Feb. 1668-9. His wife Elizabeth had died in 1664, and he seems to have married a second wife, who survived him A son, John, born in 1652, matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford (8 May 1669). Henry Norman, master of Longport grammar school from 1706 to 1730, may have been the minister's grandson.

[johking]

Great to get a repy to this after so long, and well sleuthed re John King and Anne Catherine Norman, though it is my husband's family tree not mine. Which of their many offspring are you descended from?  (my husband is Norman through two of George Norman and Ann Bagehot's children, as his great grandmother and his great grandfather were second cousins).

Our Norman family tree starts at Adrian Norman, Rector of Trushan Devon, d 15 Dec 1653, and wife Joan and gives them as parents of 4 children including John. You make a very coherent case for the Elizabeth belonging to Alleine, and the second wife to be Anne Blake. I like that. I see that Blakes pop up further down the Norman tree too, wonder if they are related...

Re the Kings in Jamaica, our family tree has has John King and Captain Kell King at the top:
"Captain Kell King, R.N. married Miss Bryan, emigrated with John"
alongside
"Doctor John King, born circ 1740 and emigrated circ [gap] Married circ 1775 Elizabeth Briggs"
 
Then under that are 12 names shown as siblings, but only Francis King b 1778 and Elizbeth Briggs King are shown as having offspring. Francis and Letitia Ann Hall have 5 offspring, including our John King as above.

Is that the same as yours? I have never been able to substantiate any of the Dr John and Captain Kell King details. I would love to know where they came from originally. We have a letter with an oral memory they were from NE England...

In my experience, having two very detailed family trees on both sides of the family is a great luxury - very lucky indeed! You must feel the same.

[Andrew Dunn]

In my research, I have found that if the marriage isn't between at least 2nd cousins or 1st cousins once removed then I've problem got the wrong people! 

I'm guessing the second cousins that you are referring to are Alfred Norman King and Grace Mary Bagehot Norman ... and as you still have the King name ...does that mean your husband is either Ian or Graeme?

I'm descended from John King and Anne Catherine Norman's daughter Alice King

Dr John "Kell" King born 1735 married Elizabeth Biggs in 1760 in Jamaica, they had 12 children
The Kell name persist through descendants of Dr John King - e.g. a son was named Samuel Kell King

Dr John King had a brother Francis King b1742, he married Sarah Bryan and they had 7 children from 1768 onwards, all born in Jamaica - none of his descendants are given the Kell name

So I ask you, does it make sense that the two brothers that inherited some land in Jamaica and emigrated mid 1700s were called Doctor John King and Captain Kell King, or is there something wrong with the story?

I've seen three families that have the same history - descendants of three separate children of Dr John King and Elizabeth Biggs. via Francis King, Sarah Ann Smith King and Richard Cargill King.

It's odd as how many families would have such a precis history passed down the different children, it certainly wasn't a story made up by a later generation down just one of the children's lines, which might have been something done post abolition

Digging around there seems to be too many earlier Kings in Jamaica to explain the two Yorkshire King brothers inheriting land .... unless one of those earlier Kings wife decided she would be better of living in England with the boys

Dr John King and Francis King just seem a bit too successful or intermixed with prominent Jamaican families to have "just fallen of the boat" so to speak

There are also extensive links with French refugees from Saint Domingue (Now Haiti) - the De Gournay and Corre Desgouttes families.

Both Michel Raphael Issac De Gournay (1713-1813) and his wife Perrine Therese Elizabeth Chevolleau (1730-1802) had claims for property lost in Saint Domingue. Some of those properties are labelled "AF" (French for Family Association), often indicating shared ownership of the property with other families - one such property is called "KILL KING" (sic), but may have been Kell King

De Gournay emigrated to St Domingue between 1748 and 1759 and evacuated to Jamaica in 1794

[Andrew Dunn]

This is the record for the John King that married Anne Catherine Norman

https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L2HX-JGC

It's FamilySearch.org, which thankfully is free to use

[johking]

Aha, "Cousin Katie" and James Dunn the architect?

That is absolutely fascinating about the King brothers and thanks for all the research you have done. The family tree we have does indeed look a bit unsure, with their names at the top but no indication of who produced the string of names in the next row of the tree.

The Jamaican records you mention seem to ensure that the Kell moniker belonged to Dr John King and I will have to update my records to suit. Was he the RN Captain as well I wonder, ie a medical doctor? ie the family tree knew there were two brothers and split up the naming knowledge they had?

It's been a while since I looked at all this stuff and I have just remembered I was kindly sent John King Sr's will (ie Dr John Kell King as I now know him to be) and right enough his brother Francis is mentioned - do you have that document?

You are yet to totally convince me that the 2 brothers didn't emigrate as in the legend. Counter argument - they were related to the Kings already in Jamaica and decided to go out to join them and make their fortune??

I've always assumed Kell is a surname and from the surname distribution map of 1881, the concentration is definitely in Yorkshire which would back up that side of the origin story. If it is a surname, it may be from a maternal line?

Very interesting about the French Haiti connection. John King's first wife was Henriette Louise Desouttes, according to the family tree. Is that a typo for Desgouttes do you think?