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By Claire, on January 18th, 2016
 Leonard Turner’s wife Lorrie Esther Baker, my maternal great-grandmother, was born in North Marston, Bucks, on 27 January 1887, but by the time she was ten her family had moved to the tiny, neighboring village of Hoggeston, which is where she lived until the age of twenty-two when she married Leonard and settled in Winslow.[1] You can read more about Lorrie and Leonard here and here.
Lorrie was the second of nine children born to Henry Thomas Baker, a butcher from North Marston, and his wife Annie Imogen Emily Meadows, who were married in Winslow on 10 September 1883.[2] Of their nine children, the first eight were daughters.[3] I received this in a letter from Aunty Jean dated 28 October 1990 [4]:
‘…because there were eight Baker girls, I understand the Bells were rung at Hoggeston on the birth of their only (…more)
By Claire, on June 14th, 2012
The back of this photo says “Mrs. Harry Turner.” The question is this: Is she Louisa Smith, Harry’s first wife, whom he married in 1870; or is she Roseanna McGuinness, whom he married in 1884, following Louisa’s death?
Wordless Wednesday is a daily blogger prompt sponsered by Geneabloggers
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You might also like:Amanuensis Monday: Another Denchfield Will (part of a series)Amanuensis Monday: Awdry Denchfield of Thornborough, BucksAmanuensis Monday: 1814 Will of John Denchfield of Burston House
By Claire, on November 28th, 2011
 And will it help my Denchfield problem?
Having exhausted parish registers and probate records, and followed the land records as far as they could take me, I’ve got a much better sense of who was who among the many Denchfields of North Marston and surrounding villages; however, there are still some holes. As active in the community as this family was, with lives quite well documented, there are still a couple of elusive characters who seem to have mysteriously fallen from the face of the earth, or at least Buckinghamshire’s corner of it:
• Richard Denchfield, baptized in North Marston on 13 February 1637, eldest son of Mathew. Richard was alive in 1660, when Mathew wrote his will, by which Richard stood to inherit half of the family’s homestead. He is mentioned again at the probate of brother John’s estate in 1689, having been asked by his brother to help (…more)
By Claire, on November 25th, 2011
 Recently I wrote about using land records to help sort out a confusing family here, and this week I’ve been applying that approach to try to sort out, once and for all, the kinships between the various Richard and John Denchfields of 17th and 18th century North Marston, Bucks.
Here’s what I did:
Created a combined timeline of all the players in an Excel spreadsheet.
Extracted all the references to land found in the Denchfield wills.
Created a Word chart showing all the Denchfield landowners and dates of any land related activity
Here’s a printscreen snapshot of that chart: I love color-coding!
Laying the land transactions out chronologically made everything much more cohesive and confirmed a lot of what I believed to be true based on parish records and wills.
The biggest problem I have with the Denchfield kinships has to do with John Denchfield, iremonger, and his wife Parnell, whose union produced two (…more)
By Claire, on November 21st, 2011
 When John Denchfield, dairyman of North Marston, died in 1799, he left property in North Marston to his sons John and Richard. John inherited the enclosure land which had been allotted to the senior John’s father, John Denchfield, some years before. The fields were situated between the property of Mr. Lewis and Mr. Eaton. Richard, upon reaching full age, was to inherit the John’s messuage near the church, currently occupied by William Buckingham, and the messuage and close John had recently purchased from James Burnham of Winslow. The bulk of John’s estate including, presumably, the house he and his wife Mary lived in, was left jointly to Mary and son John.
Sometime during the next 10 years, this Denchfield family rather inexplicitly relocated to Aston Abbotts. John’s widow Mary, in her 1809 will transcribed here, left small financial bequests to each of her children and grandchildren, with the bulk of her (…more)
By Claire, on November 19th, 2011
 A while back, I transcribed the will of Awdry Denchfield, widow of John Denchfield. From the bequests in Awdry’s will, it appears she had been the widow of a Mr. Knowles at the time of her marriage to John Denchfield, and that she was the mother of at least three daughters and one son:
George Knowles, under age
Elizabeth Collins
deceased daughter, wife of William French
deceased daughter, wife of John Chandler
From other records, I was able to infer that John and Awdry’s marriage must have taken place after 1677, but the marriage is not recorded in the parish registers for North Marston, where the couple lived until John’s death in 1689, nor did it turn up in a search on FamilySearch. The Buckinghamshire Family History Society ran a search on Denchfield, and its many variants, in their database of marriages from all extant parishes in Buckinghamshire, with no success. (…more)
By Claire, on October 3rd, 2011
 In the Name of God, Amen I Mary Dench=
field of the Parish of Aston–Abbots in the County of Bucks
(and Widow of the late John Denchfield of North–Marston~
in the same County Dairyman) being weak in Body but
of sound and perfect memory and Understanding do
make and declare this to be my last Will and Testament,
as follows:— I give and bequeath unto my Son ~~
Richard the Sum of Fourscore Pounds:—I give
unto my Daughter Elizabeth Fifty Pounds:—I give to
my Daughter Sarah, the Wife of John Parrott of East~
Claydon, the Sum of Twenty Pounds:— I give unto my
Daughter Ann, the Wife of William Baker of North–~
Marston aforesaid, Forty Pounds:—I give to Susanna
the Wife of William Curtis (my Daughter) of Denham,
Forty Pounds:—I give unto my Servant and Grand–
son John Chantrel, Twenty pounds, all which before=
mentioned Legacies I desire my (…more)
By Claire, on September 1st, 2011
 The very kind Mike Dewey of the Buckinghamshire Family History Society, BFHS, made a visit (several actually) to the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, CBS, on my behalf and sent me images of several Denchfield wills today, including this one made by Henry Denchfield of Quainton in 1662. Thank you Mike Dewey!!!! Although the Internet is a wonderful thing, making available all sorts of records from around the world, there is so much more to be had. Over the next several months, Mike will be scanning manorial records, court rolls, court books, terriers, and village surveys dating back to the 1600s, in search of references to my Denchfields and any clues which may help sort out the jumble of Johns, Richards, Marys and Elizabeths which have haunted me for years. I have nearly exhausted sources available online for my Denchfields, including census records, parish register transcripts, some probate records and land conveyances, (…more)
By Claire, on August 16th, 2011
 …Mary Denchfield of the Weald Grounds in the parrish of Wing in the County of Bucks Dary Woman Being of Sound mind and perfect memory praised be God for it… made a will on 7 January 1733/34. In it, she made arrangements for her nephew Richard Denchfield and her kinswoman Elizabeth Penn to receive 50 shillings apiece following her death, with the bulk of her estate going to her nephew Mathew Denchfield. The record of her burial at Wing’s All Saints Church on 7 March 1734, described her as a “widow from Cotsloe,” a hamlet just west of the village, which is today known as Cottesloe Farm on Cublington Road.
All Saints Parish Church in Wing
But who was she?
If she really was a widow, she made no mention of it in her will, nor did she acknowledge any living children or grandchildren.
(…more)
By Claire, on August 8th, 2011
Richard Denchfield, labourer of Whitchurch, wrote a will in 1749, probably from his death bed a day or two before he died in early October. His estate, probated on the 28th of that same month, consisted of no inventory (Note 1). He was survived by his widow, Mary Cheshire, and their only son, 11 year old Thomas. It’s not clear what happened to the widow Mary, although there is a record of a Mary Denchfield marrying Thomas Rickart in Whitchurch in 1752 (Note 2). Richard’s son Thomas grew up to marry Mary Henley on 15 July 1762 and fathered 10 children. Who was this Richard, labourer of Whitchurch? I suspect he was the son of Richard Denchfield and his first wife Elizabeth, baptized in North Marston on 12 June 1709. That Richard was a farmer in North Marston, likely the son of ironmonger John and Parnell Denchfield. The elder Richard had inherited his father John’s house (…more)
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