THOMAS NOAKES Benenden burial 1688ish ?

[bearkat]

Do the records on The Weald website help?

https://www.theweald.org/a12.asp?QId=141501110&astart=0&aend=170000000

[suecee]

Thank you Bearkat, I’d forgotten all about the Weald website. There are quite a few NOAKES but sadly the gaps it has are the ones I need.

I am still looking for the marriage of THOMAS NOAKES (1687 Benenden) to ELIZABETH some time before 1719 when their first child Elizabeth was baptised in Lamberhurst.

The majority of trees for Thomas 1687 of Benenden have the marriage of THOMAS NOAKES to ELIZABETH ARCHLEY 15 Oct 1717 Warehorne but apart from the right date it didn’t seem right as it is just that bit too far away from Benenden and Lamberhurst.
So I’ve done further research of Noakes in that area.

There were two other NOAKES marriages in Warehorne around the same time (Henry 1715 and Elizabeth 1716) suggesting a Noakes family already in the area, not any Noakes from Benenden.

There were baptisms of an Elizabeth 1695 and a Thomas 1697/8 in Woodchurch - couldn’t find Henry.

Both Henry and Thomas stayed in the area (Appledore/Woodchurch/Kennardington) so not my Henry (1700) or Thomas (1687) from Benenden.

The biggest reason for it NOT being Elizabeth ARCHLEY is that
ELIZABETH NOAKES, wife of THOMAS, was buried in Warehorne 31 Mar 1733!

(My Thomas died 1748 Lamberhurst and his wife Elizabeth died in 1771 in Lamberhurst)

There don’t appear to be any children for that marriage although the Lamberhurst baptisms do fit time wise, so I can see why people have added Elizabeth Archley as the mother of those children.

It looks like widowed Thomas married again to Margaret Nower in 1737 in Ebony and they had 5 surviving children, some born in Appledore, the rest in Kenardington.
This Thomas died in 1755 in Kenardington  age 60 years and Margaret in 1765.

It is the patchiness of the Lamberhurst/Benenden records which is frustrating and the lack of images to search through for missing baptisms, marriages and burials.

[bearkat]

Have you searched Kent and Sussex marriage licences?

[melba_schmelba]

Thank you Bearkat, I’d forgotten all about the Weald website. There are quite a few NOAKES but sadly the gaps it has are the ones I need.

I am still looking for the marriage of THOMAS NOAKES (1687 Benenden) to ELIZABETH some time before 1719 when their first child Elizabeth was baptised in Lamberhurst.

The majority of trees for Thomas 1687 of Benenden have the marriage of THOMAS NOAKES to ELIZABETH ARCHLEY 15 Oct 1717 Warehorne but apart from the right date it didn’t seem right as it is just that bit too far away from Benenden and Lamberhurst.
[SNIP]
It is the patchiness of the Lamberhurst/Benenden records which is frustrating and the lack of images to search through for missing baptisms, marriages and burials.

Ancestry doesn't have the images for Kent parish registers, Kent Archives worked with Findmypast to get these scanned so they have them, excepting for the Medway Archives who have scanned their own and put them onto pdfs, which Findmypast link to.
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/kent-county-council-parish-register-browse

  Re: finding Thomas & Elizabeth's marriage, I definitely wouldn't ignore marriages some distance away. As with the marriage of Henry Noakes in Battle earlier, people might go some distance to a big town or city to get married, sometimes because their marriage was not approved of locally, or sometimes just to have a nice day out! I've found many Kent marriages as far as Lewes in the west, or London in the north. Sometimes only a license might survive. Findmypast has the vicar general and faculty office license index. A very few of these I think are here, otherwise you have to pay the SOG for a copy

London, England, Crisp's Marriage Licence Index, 1713-1892
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1768/

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/faculty-office-marriage-licences
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-records/vicar-general-marriage-licences (only indexed by surname)

there is also London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921 which also covers some Essex marriages and people from Kent who married in London
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2056/

and this which covers Kent 1568-1750
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/britain-marriage-licences

and also the London Clandestine marriage records (i.e. Liberty of the Fleet etc.) 1667-1754 which includes many marriages of people from outside London
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/5344/

And lastly, people didn't always get married. It might be worth checking in the Benenden register to see if there were any illegitimate children born to an Elizabeth just before Thomas and Elizabeth started having children.

[suecee]

Thank you for all those links melba_schmelba
I’ve been through them all and drawn a complete blank.

I can’t find another Thomas Noakes/ Elizabeth marriage anywhere or anything that might have been mistranscribed.

As the Warehorne Thomas and Elizabeth stayed in the area and there is no other possible marriage for them, I have to conclude that it is my Thomas and Elizabeth marriage that is missing.

There was an Elizabeth Paine who had illegitimate children baptised in 1712 but otherwise there were no other base borns in Benenden at all.

I’m also puzzled by the baptism of a RICHARD NOAKES on the same day as brother HENRY on 13 Aug 1700.
This baptism appears on findmypast, ancestry and family search but not on my KentFHS CD rom (which I’ve found does have mistranscriptions and omissions).
Is he a twin that didn’t survive, for whom there is no marriage or burial or is he a figment of a transcribers imagination?

[bearkat]

From the original images of the Benenden baptisms for 1770

13th August - Henry Son of James & Susanna NOAKES born 2nd day of July last past (the words Henry & Susanna must have been added later as they are written with a different ink)

There were a couple of Richards baptised that year but neither of them were Noakes

[melba_schmelba]

Thank you for all those links melba_schmelba
I’ve been through them all and drawn a complete blank.

I can’t find another Thomas Noakes/ Elizabeth marriage anywhere or anything that might have been mistranscribed.

As the Warehorne Thomas and Elizabeth stayed in the area and there is no other possible marriage for them, I have to conclude that it is my Thomas and Elizabeth marriage that is missing.

Looking at the way the marriages were recorded in the Lamberhurst register around that period, they seem to have been recorded in a rather untidy haphazard way, it could be that they were copied from the vicar's or clerk's notebooks and were done so unreliably. Perhaps it might be worth checking a bishops transcript if one survives. Or it might be as I said, that they never married, perhaps because they had already had an illegitimate child together which everyone knew about, and so the local vicar was not approving of marrying them, but also did not want to go to a London parish or clandestine marriage place where their circumstances would not be known. Or it could also be because one of them had been abandoned by their partner, and in those days divorce was not possible, but you could also not remarry without proof of death of the other spouse without falling foul of bigamy laws.

Interestingly though, this book suggests a couple merely had to say "I marry you" in front of witnesses and it was accepted they were married, or just say "I will marry you", but this became less accepted by the church later into the 18th century

Living in Sin- Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-century England
By Ginger Frost · 2013 Manchester University Press

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Living_in_sin/62S5DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22common%20law%20marriages%22%20england&pg=PT23&printsec=frontcover

[bearkat]

From the Familysearch catalogue:

Benenden

Archdeacon's transcripts contd.: Baptisms, marriages and burials 1680-1812 (missing: 1681/2, 1708/9, 1718/9, 1724/5, 1725/6, 1728/9, 1729/30, 1731/2, 1738/9)

[suecee]

I know it is possible that Thomas and Elizabeth didn’t marry but the rest of the siblings did so it is more than likely that this is just one of the records for the Benenden/Lamberhurst area that cannot be found. (There are several baptisms and burials that I know should be there but I can’t find)

Fortunately it is Henry I am descended from but I hate loose ends 

I am trying to get a copy of James Noakes 1727 will, a somewhat clunky process, and maybe that may be of some help.

Thanks for your help everyone.