Over the years as Downe Online Parish Clerk I have had regular contact from frustrated searchers trying to locate entries in Cudham the adjacent parish to Downe. I soon encountered the anarchy of the preserved record prior to 1800.
I have spent a good deal of time examining the Composite Register volume for the years 1763-1800 to prepare a transcript which will be simple to search. Along the way I have encountered some woeful record keeping.
My transcript of the Banns and Marriages register at Kent Online Parish Clerks is already available online and hints at the problems facing the searcher. It also demonstrates the simple search enabled by the transcriber.
Since the Reverend Thomas Browne Curate at Cudham created anarchy in the marriage register with up to three attempts at spelling a surname and frequent errors (often concealed by an inkblot smear) it was not a suprise to discover that the Composite register of baptisms and burials was a challenge.
The granting of permission to microfilm this volume only narrowly given by the Parochial Church Council and lead to Genealogical Society of Utah microfilming. In this volume the collection of images is incomplete (as in another volume of burials). Many of my correspondents had experienced grave difficulty with microfilm as a search method. Before the volume was handled by microfilming operator Bromley Archive had numbered in pencil each sheet in the bound volume. I believe that the string bound volume with loose sheets may have been bound circa 1880. On archive page 5 following two blank sheets the register directory reads:
"The entries begin at this side in 1763 and are written on right hand pages to the middle of the book and there end in 1783. The entries begin at the other side on page 14 and writing on both sides but in some interleaved with burials and end in 1800".
I have been unable to establish where the "page 14" is in the surviving record and this Directory omits to mention the two marriage entries found in the volume. One of these is entered in the Marriage register and included in my transcript but when you reach the rear of the bound sheets and turn the volume over to continue to search for Baptisms a single sheet contains a marriage entry with spouses signatures and four witness signatures. Within the archive numbered page 103 are the following marriage entry and two added private baptisms at Cudham Lodge in 1788 and 1790 of STRINGER children.
On 22 October 1788 the marriage of John MONK and Mary TILDEN both of Cudham parish was conducted by Curate Robert Fegan;both spouses sign the single sheet and the marriage was conducted by licence so no entry is found in the banns book. The four witnesses are Thomas TILDEN Elizabeth HILL Alice MONK and Ann JEWSON.
It appears to me in examing the whole record that the random mixture of a marriage and private baptisms on a single sheet reflects the casual approach to the record which is predominantly the work of Thomas Browne whose longevity as a rural curate does not indicate stellar performance as part of his career in the parish. The record includes entries omitted by him (mentioned by name) presumably to reflect to the compiler of the Bishop's Transcript who was at fault. It is also clear that he was responsible for many surname variant spellings and errors perhaps reflecting poor penmanship. The supply of quills and the poor quality ink used in Cudham poses an additional problem as several entries are so faint as to be barely legible although the sheets have not needed paper conservation in their decades in archival conservation. I included a warning about his Marriage register entries which have been found to err greatly as to surname spellings and this volume also reflects this problem.
The burial entries indicate that the Curate was responsible for the parish Workhouse inmates at Leaves Green and private baptisms at Aperfield Cudham Lodge and the farms at the extremities of the seven mile long parish. The Workhouse burials occur in the 1780's and this appears to date the opening of the parish workhouse It is clear that the record was not immediately entered as entries for different years appear and the sheets are not in chronological sequence in the binding. The two hands for some years and separation of entries suggest that vicar and curate kept separate sheets.
I would caution any searcher for family that the surviving and conserved record may therefore be incomplete and inaccurate for names and dates because there are entries which revert to use of the Gregorian calendar month which seem implausible within content on an individual page.
The burial entries are now online at Kent Online Parish Clerks.
I hope that the many hours spent sifting this record will emulate the Banns and Marriage transcript in simple search when the final preparation of data for online parish publication by Kent Online Parish Clerks and that searchers will have a simpler experience.
In responding to correspondence an average look up in this record has taken up to an hour to locate an entry when a year of birth was known. The transcript will hopefully save searchers a good deal of time.
© Henry Mantell Downe Online Parish Clerk 2013-2017
No comments:
Post a Comment