Aaron or is it Henry

[BerryW]

Following on from Peter's newsletter article on proving by disproving, I have the following example which I would welcome comments on. This time I am not trying to write an article so will give all the info I have.

My Gx3 Grandfather is Henry Wraight. He consistently claims to have been born 1791/2 in Kennington [on the outskirts of Ashford to be precise] On his second marriage in 1853 to Mary Hassum in Frindsbury, Kent he states that his father is William. Henry's 2nd marriage

Given that information I have searched many times for a Henry born within that set of parameters and not one of the few I did find, fitted the bill.

There is however, an Aaron Wraight born 1792 in Kennington to father William. Aaron's baptism I have also tried to find him dead or alive over the next 100 years and failed just as miserably.

Given all this, I suspect, but have been unable to prove, that my Henry may have been born Aaron Wraight 1792 to William Wraight and Judith [Beeching nee Jordan]. This is based predominantly on the year of baptism, the fathers name of William and the place of birth being Kennington. In addition to this though is the connection with his first born being called Jane, possibly after the name of the eldest sister? [see below] but another fact, which may be the clincher, is that the witness to the marriage of Henry Wraight [spelt Rate and transcribed as Bate on Ancestry] is a William Beaching/Beeching/Beechin amongst other variations who is probably the half brother born to Henry's mother Judith, if indeed she is. [unfortunately I can't insert a link here as the mid-kent marriage index is still off line]

In 1755 Judith was born Judith Jordan to Richard Jordan and Ann [nee Sharp] in Ruckinge, Kent.
In 1781 she married Widower Robert Beeching in Ivychurch, Kent with whom she had two children. They are:-

Mary 1782 Boughton Aluph , Kent and
William 1784 Bilsington, Kent.

In 1787 Judith Beeching remarried William Wraight [also a widower] in Boughton Aluph in 1787, by licence [which I really must get sight of], both being recorded as widowed. I have so far found 3 children born to William Wraight and Judith:-

Jane 1787 Boughton Aluph
Catherine 1790 Kennington and
Aaron 1792 Kennington

Unfortunately I have found no further entries for William or Judith to work out what happened to them. Or indeed Jane, Catherine or Aaron. It may just be they emigrated as a family, not that I have found any evidence as such! or perhaps all changed their names [perhaps as a result of a criminal issue maybe, just a musing on my part but have not found anything to support this either].

Is the fact that none of the girls Henry sired were called Judith after his mother more than just a point on the downside of the scales? As a great believer in naming conventions at that time, this has always bothered me.

So my question is [finally] do I have enough evidence to say, with more that tentative conviction, that Aaron is my Grandfather Henry? or is there more I can do to prove it one way or the other?

Many thanks for getting this far
Berry

 

[peter]

There are two things you don't mention which might possibly be important:

• Stamp Duty - which applied from 1783-1794 and discouraged the registration of baptisms
• DNA - this 'brick wall' is within reach of an autosomal test, so there could well be relevant evidence amongst your DNA matches

I wouldn't worry too much about naming conventions - they applied in some families but not in others. It's notable that none of Judith's 3 daughters were called after her or her mother (Ann).

Something else to consider is that not all Kent registers are online, and not all of the others have been transcribed. This could explain why the family seems to have disappeared - they might simply have 'emigrated' to a different parish, one whose registers have yet to be transcribed.

Was Henry's first wife called Tamazin? The 1851 Census gives the birthplaces of this couple as 'Kent, not known'.

 

[BerryW]

Thanks Peter.
I wasn’t aware of the stamp duty nor that there were any parishes in kent still to be transcribed! Is there a list of these? I could make a point of looking at those.
Now you’ve mentioned it, I realise I had not even thought about Judith not naming her girls after herself!!! Duh!!
Henry has Kennington as his birthplace [or perhaps baptismal place] in each of the subsequent census records, ie 1861, 1871 and 1881. maybe he found out when he got married in 1853.
Yes, Henry’s wife is Tamson, Tamsin, Tamazin even Jamson on one transcription and GRO have Yammazin!! but she was baptised and married with the name Thomasine, which spell checker keeps changing too! She died in 1852.

 

[peter]

I wasn’t aware.... that there were any parishes in Kent still to be transcribed! Is there a list of these? I could make a point of looking at those.

Unfortunately those sorts of lists rarely exist for any county, but the FamilySearch wiki is a good place to start as it is a fairly reliable guide to which records are available online and where they can be found. For example, this is the page for Kennington.

I said fairly reliable because the wiki may not be up to date, and to may exaggerate the coverage - for example, if you look at Kennington it suggests that FreeREG has coverage of baptisms from the 1500s to 1900s, whereas at FreeREG it shows that the coverage starts in 1754.