GO BACK 400 YEARS
Janet Few investigates the lives of our Stuart ancestors, and outlines the unmissable sources that can help your 17th-century genealogical research
Janet Few outlines the unmissable sources that can help your 17th-century genealogical research
When we think of the 1600s, events come to mind from our history lessons at school. The Gunpowder Plot, the sailing of the Mayflower, the Civil War, the plague and the Great Fire of London. It was a century when our ancestors might have been caught up in an economic boom, with the establishment of trading companies, fuelled in part by the slave trade. The era was dominated by religious dissent and intolerance; neighbour turned upon neighbour, and a rumour of witchcraft could get you killed.
We all have 17th-century ancestors, even if they are still lurking, nameless, waiting to be discovered. Somewhere among the 4.8 million people who inhabited England and Wales in 1600 are the people many of us descend from. British family trees often break down in the 18th century. Either your ancestor remains elusive, or there is an embarrassment of riches: four John Smiths in the right area at the right time, and you may not
be able to confirm which is ‘yours’ with any certainty. Some of us are fortunate enough to be able to take at least one line back into the 1600s, although as we do so we tend to find that records become fragmentary. Nonetheless, there are ways in which we can locate those 17th-century ancestors and learn more about their lives.
Genealogical sources for 17thcentury research fall into two categories: those that we can also use for other periods, and those that are exclusive to the 1600s. The first group includes parish registers and wills, reinforced by deeds, leases and parish-chest documents. Although we are familiar with parish registers from more recent times, as we delve further back, these entries may be more difficult to read, they can be in Latin and there is a higher chance that a register will not survive. Entries are often brief, baptisms lack mother’s names, and burials give only the date and the name of the deceased, without any indication of which Mary Brown has just been laid to rest.
It is also evident that there are significant gaps in these records, most notably during the Commonwealth (1653–1660), where the keeping of such records was taken into secular hands. For the 17th century, we may be fortunate and find that Bishops’ Transcripts, the copies of the registers that should have been sent to the bishop on an annual basis, survive in county archives, alongside, or instead of, the registers themselves. These may fill gaps in the registers, or give additional information.
The Value Of Wills
Wills can be a vital way of confirming a family line, and these are sometimes accompanied by an inventory that will give an impression of an ancestor’s home and way of life. These may be held locally, or at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew. Between 1653 and 1660 all wills were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and will be at TNA. Deeds and leases can provide information about where an ancestor lived. Leases for lives, where the lease lasted as long as named people survived, can also suggest family relationships. Churchwardens’ accounts are documents that would have been held in the parish chest, and these can place a named person in a particular parish at a certain date.
Our poorer relations are not neglected in this period, and we may find them mentioned in the account books of the overseers of the poor alongside their wealthier neighbours, paying the poor rates, receiving poor relief or providing services to the poor. Legislation introduced by the 1662 Poor Relief Act, also known as the Settlement Act, gives us a whole new series of documentation, as parishes aimed to pass the burden of supporting a pauper
to another area. Claimants were examined to determine their legal parish of settlement and therefore who should be paying for the pauper. Where they survive, these records are invaluable for tracking down mobile ancestors.
It is worth seeking out manorial documents for the 17th century. It may require professional help to translate them from Latin, but they provide a wealth of information. The manorial courts dealt with minor infringements of the law, such as slander, public nuisance and affray. How exciting to find out that your ancestor was accused of diverting his neighbour’s watercourse.
Importantly, the manor also dealt with the transfer of copyhold land. Holdings were normally passed to family members, and previous copy holders – sometimes going back several generations – might be mentioned when the land was transferred. The Manorial Documents Register is the starting point when identifying manors and the whereabouts of any surviving records, and can be searched via TNA’s online catalogue at discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/manor-search.
Of course, it was not just the manorial courts who were responsible for law and order. Your ancestors might appear in the records of a variety of courts as the victim, as a witness or as the accused. For example, TNA holds the records of the Chancery Court and the assize courts, and has created useful online research guides at nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-withyour-research/research-guides. The proceedings of London’s Central Criminal Court from 1674 onwards can be searched at oldbaileyonline.org. County archives hold the records of the quarter-sessions and petty-sessions courts, which dealt with less serious crimes, although cases that were later referred to the higher courts might have their first hearing here. The quarter sessions were also responsible for issuing a variety of licences, from victuallers to midwives. Some counties have published records of their quarter sessions but others remain unindexed, which makes searching very difficult.
Ecclesiastical Courts
Apart from the secular courts, there was also a hierarchy of ecclesiastical courts in the 17th century. These are sometimes referred to as the ‘bawdy courts’, because they dealt with crimes of a sexual nature such as fornication, adultery and bigamy, in addition to libel, slander and defamation of character. These records are also held locally.
If your ancestors were entitled to bear arms (armigerous), then they should appear in the heraldic visitations, which took place roughly every 30 years between 1530 and 1686 and resulted
in a series of useful pedigrees. The originals are at the heraldic authority the College of Arms in London ( college-of-arms.gov.uk), and those for many counties have been published.
Although there are no censuses as such for the 17th century there are a number of lists that may at least pinpoint a head of household in a particular place at the date of the return. In 1603, there was a diocesan census that lists communicants and survives for about a third of the country. This has been transcribed by Alan Dyer and David M Palliser in The Diocesan Population Returns for 1563 and 1603 (Oxford University Press, 2005).
In 1641–1642 a collection was taken up to support Irish Protestants. These ‘Distressed Protestants’ were being attacked by Catholics who objected to the ‘planting’ of a Protestant population on their land. The list of donors, arranged by county, is at TNA, but there are some locally held copies and references in parish registers. Against a background of religious upheaval, the Protestation Oath Rolls or Protestation Returns were drawn up in 1641–1642. These oaths of support for the Protestant religion were required from all adult men. Returns survive for about a third of English counties, and the majority of the records are in the Parliamentary Archives at the Palace of Westminster ( archives.parliament.uk/research-guides/family-history/protestation-returns-for-family-history).
The hearth tax was levied twice-yearly from 1662 to 1689, but records only survive from 1662 to 1674. The returns are
‘Oaths of support for Protestantism were required from all adult men’
geographically arranged lists of occupiers as well as the number of hearths, which gives a rough idea of relative wealth. Where a run of returns survive it might be possible to see William Jones becoming Widow Jones and then Richard Jones (a son perhaps), for example. Those who were exempt on the grounds of poverty were also listed. The site Hearth Tax Digital gams.uni-graz.at/context:htx gives details of all of the returns that have been transcribed by the Centre for Hearth Tax Research at the University of Roehampton. The returns for some counties have been published too.
There were also seven poll taxes raised between 1660 and 1697. These sometimes list family and servants, not just heads of household, but survival is poor. Returns will be in county archives while TNA has lists of defaulters.
Bishop Compton’s census of 1676 survives mainly for Wales, the Midlands and the south of England. Although names are given for only 19 parishes, the census gives numbers of ‘conformists’, Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, so may provide information about the religious options in your ancestors’ area. This has been transcribed in Annie Whiteman’s The Compton Census of 1676: a Critical Edition (Oxford University Press, 1986).
‘The hearth-tax returns list occupiers as well as the number of hearths’
Another oath was taken in 1695–1696, when office-holders and clergy signed Association Oath Rolls asserting their loyalty to the Crown. Surviving lists of subscribers, arranged geographically, are at TNA. There are a few locally held copies.
Our Ancestors’ Daily Life
There are two strands to 17thcentury research: first locating named ancestors in the records and acquiring genealogical information, and secondly understanding the social and historical context for their lives. Most of our forebears would have led relatively self-sufficient lives in a rural area. Clothing was homemade, and might be limited to one or two sets. It was passed down in the family, and expected to last 10 years or so. Homes were small, and might be shared with livestock in bad weather. Food was home-produced and difficult to store; most fruit and vegetables were available only during a very short growing season. The working day was long and physically demanding. The housewife had many tasks. Wood and water had to be collected, bread baked and beer brewed. Children were expected to pitch in from a very young age.
If you survived the battles of the Civil War and the hardship that it brought to those who were not involved in the fighting, many other dangers lurked. Illhealth was an economic disaster, domestic remedies were likely to be herbal, and the fear of epidemic disease was constant. It was a superstitious age; gathering herbs to provide medicines for your family might lead to you being accused of witchcraft.
Even if the names of our 17thcentury ancestors elude us, we still owe it to them to find out more about their lives – lives that were, for most, arduous and beset with hazards.