Geoffs Genealogy Update 5 April 2014
You may recall that in my post of 4th February I rambled on about our Jacobson research, and in particular whether I can justifiably add the Gosport / London Budd / Jacobson twig to the Bankes Pedigree. After chatting to one or two other people about this, and giving it some thought I decided to include these people in the Pedigree, albeit with some reservation.
I do try very hard to make sure that errors do not creep into the Pedigree, and I have not yet found conclusive evidence of the move of these people from Gosport to London, but I cannot but believe that my interpretation of the data is correct, so have taken the plunge and entered it in my family history files, with a caveat to reflect my remaining doubt. In the course of doing this, I have gleaned some more information about this clan.
Our best estimate is that Jane Jacobson, sister to my ancestor James Jacobson, Broker, married George Budd by Licence from the Bishop of Winchester’s Office in March 1708 at Holy Trinity, Gosport. As I explained in February, between 1710 and 1722 this couple had six children, so far as we know – all boys, and all baptised at Holy Trinity, Gosport. We do not know when they moved to London, but by 1733 they were living in Ratcliff Highway, to the East of London. George Budd was a shipwright, and it seems possible that he was working for the Royal Navy in their dockyards. Sadly, in March 1733 he died, being buried in the graveyard of St George in the East on 27 March of that year.
It did not take Jane long to remarry, and her second spouse was John Garrett, a Carpenter of London. He was a widower when she married him by Licence from the Bishop of London on 1 January 1734 at St George in the East. Therse facts tie in very well with the content of James Jacobson’s will, which we first saw about twenty years ago. James left bequests to his surviving siblings, and we learned from these bequests of a sister named Jane Garrett and some nephews bearing the name Budd. It has taken a long time, but thanks to this recently discovered material we have been able to work out where Garrett and Budd fit into our family history.
One of the Budd children was Ezekiel Budd (bap Gosport, 1716). We now see that in 1737 he was apprenticed as a Carpenter to his step-father, John Garrett. He would have been about 21 years old when this happened, which seems rather late to become an apprentice. Possibly Ezekiel bap 1716 may have died young, and the Ezekiel who was apprenticed to John Garrett was born later, but we have not found any evidence of that. Looking at the Carpenters’ Company Court Minutes (on the London Lives website) we see that by 2 June 1747 John Garrett had died, and Ezekiel was granted his Freedom by Garrett’s widow, who was also Ezekiel’s mother! This set us off looking for the date of John’s death, and we found the evidence we sought in the form of the following burial record:
St George in the East April 1743 14 John Garrett Carpenter R.H.W.
R.H.W. stands for Ratcliff Highway. Evidently the family was still living there.
We have found more interesting material relating to the Budds. George Budd (Jnr), eldest son of Jane Jacobson & George, married Grace Wickham on 4 November 1736 by Licence issued by the Bishop of London’s office. The marriage took place at St Mary-le-Strand, Somerset House Chapel in London. We have traced two children born to this couple – Susanna Budd, bap 1738, and Grace Ann Budd, born 4 October 1743 – but we have not yet traced any more information about the family.
One other very interesting find comes in the form of a marriage Licence Allegation that was sworn in the Vicar General’s Office on 30 November 1736. It tells us that Samuel Budd, aged “upwards of twenty one” was intending to marry Rebeccah Jacobson, spinster aged “upwards of nineteen years”. Samuel’s home parish was St George in the East, which places him in the same area as other members of the clan, and Rebeccah’s home parish was St Botolph Aldgate, which places her in the same parish as James Jacobson, our ancestor. The interesting thing is that Rebeccah’s parents were both dead, and her guardian – Susannah Collins, wife of John Collins – gave written consent to the marriage. Susannah was said to be an aunt to Rebeccah.
If you reprise my post of 5 November 2013 you will see that I outlined a very similar state of affairs, in which a certain Elizabeth Jacobson, ward of James Jacobson Broker, married Element Jones in 1734. I deduced that she was a daughter of a certain Benjamin Jacobson (prob 1730). Interestingly, in his will Benjamin mentioned two daughters – Elizabeth & Rebeccah, so I’m thinking that the lady who married Samuel Budd was very possibly his other daughter, and that Benjamin was a brother of our James Jacobson, broker. But where does Susannah Collins fit in?
And how to prove it?
Here we go again . …….
- This page was last updated on Saturday April 5th, 2014.
Geoffs Genealogy Update 04 February 2014
Quite often the results of our research into our forebears do not result in absolute certainty. We uncover information that seems to point towards a certain conclusion, but does not give us 100% certainty. Over the years I have found many pieces of research that have resulted in this sort of situation. In many of them I believe that the information I have found does relate to the people I am researching, but lack absolute proof. What to do in this situation?
The textbooks tell us that we should seek to obtain two sources for every piece of information, and few would argue that this is not a sound requirement. However, in many, many cases two sources is an unattainable goal, so we need to exercise our own judgement on this, I think. We certainly do not want to be so liberal with our standards that we end up putting incorrect information into our research findings, but we do not want to ignore relevant material for the lack of a corroborative evidence. How should we judge this?
About twenty years ago I obtained a copy of the will of my ancestor James Jacobson (c1692-1759). James was a Pawn Broker, who lived most of his life in the Tower Hill area of London. I have written of him in a number of previous entries in this blog. When he made his will on 8th August 1758 he was living at Peckham, to the south of London, but I have traced him in Land Tax Registers for London living at King Street, near the Tower, and there is a listing for him in 1758 in those records, suggesting that he may not have lived at Peckham for many months. I tend to assume that this was his retirement residence, as Peckham in those days would have been something of a rural retreat.
In James’s will he named a number of his relations, a list which included his sister, Jane Garratt, and his nephew, George Budd, and over the years I have borne in mind this snippet of information, hoping that one day I may be able to find out a little about them.
Recently, some very promising material has come to light in my research, courtesy of the Ancestry, Find My Past and Family Search websites.
The evidence that we have collected previously has led us to believe that the father of James Jacobson was Esco Jacobson, and that one of James’s siblings was a brother – Henry Jacobson. Henry first appears in the records living in Gosport, Hampshire, but he evidently moved to the Channel Island of Jersey at a fairly early age, and he lived there for the rest of his life, being buried in St Helier in 1760. As of a few years ago I believe you could still see Henry’s house in St Helier.
We have never found the birth or baptism record for James Jacobson, but bearing in mind Henry’s early life in Gosport it seems quite feasible that he may have hailed from that part of the country. Thus, when we found an entry on the Family Search website showing that George Budd married a certain Jane Jacobson on 8 March 1708 at Holy Trinity, Gosport we were very interested.
This was the first of a series of entries that enable us to put together a very convincing hypothesis:
George Budd & Jane had several children. George Budd was baptised on 3 February 1710, but presumably died whilst young as another another George Budd was baptised in 1713. In 1712 Jacobson Budd was baptised, and he was followed by Samuel Budd in 1714, Ezekiel Budd in 1716, James Budd in 1718 and Esco Budd in 1722. All these children were baptised at Holy Trinity, Gosport.
We then skip forward to 1734, when we find a Faculty Office Marriage Licence Allegation for the marriage of Jane Budd, widow, to John Garret, widower in London. These looks very much like our people. If so, we can deduce that Jane’s first husband had died before 1734, and also that the family had moved to London.
Other probably relevant discoveries are that in 1736 George Budd married a certain Grace Witcham in Somerset House Chapel in London, and three years later Ezekiel Budd was apprenticed in London, his master being named as John Garret and his father being George Budd.
There was also a marriage between a certain Rebecca Jacobson and Samuel Budd in 1736 at Somerset House Chapel in London, but we cannot identify this Rebecca Jacobson at present.
The family group that emerges from the above reads as follows:
George Budd (d bef 1734) m Gosport 8 Mar 1708 Jane Jacobson (b abt 1688)
Children – all baptised at Holy Trinity, Gosport:
George Budd (abt 1710 – bef 1713)
Jacobson Budd (b abt 1712)
George Budd (b abt 1713) m Grace Witcham 1736 in London
Samuel Budd (b abt 1714)
Ezekiel Budd (b abt 1716)
James Budd (b abt 1718)
Esco Budd (b abt 1722)
Jane (Jacobson) Budd second marriage 1734 in London to John Garret
All this information hangs together very well, and makes perfect sense in the context of James Jacobson’s will and what we already knew, but does it give us 100% certainty? As we have not yet seen the original sources for many of the above events it seems logical to make that the next step. It may also be possible to order the Gosport records on microfilm, to view at our local Mormon Family History Centre, but I’ve never yet seen Winchester Cathedral, and Winchester is the home of Hampshire Archives. Tempting…..
- This page was last updated on Tuesday February 4th, 2014.