Abraham Amos' parents - part 2

A while ago I traced the parents of my 3great-grandfather Abraham Amos, determining them to be Thomas Amos and Amy Dunn. Since then, I have continued pushing the line back, and have gone back quite far--to the seventeenth century--on one of the maternal lines. Recently, however, in a Google search for something else, I stumbled across an apparently well-researched genealogical site that threw my conclusions into doubt.

The site is called Faded Genes, and is a project to trace the ancestry of some Kentish soldiers who died during WWI. Two of my 2great-grandfather George Amos' nephews, Ernest Richard Amos and Fred Amos, are featured. They are sons of his brother Thomas, and therefore share his ancestry on their paternal side. The information on the site agrees with my research that their grandparents were Abraham Amos and Isabella Cock. It also agrees with my research on the Cock family, and even gives me a hint that one of the Simon Cocks may have had a second marriage I didn't know about. However, when looking at the Amos line I had a great shock.

The line read " Thomas AMOS, born Abt 1795. He married Mary [maiden name unknown – marriage not found]." My initial reaction was that the researcher simply hadn't been able to find out as much as I had. Abraham's parents were Thomas and Amy; likely the mistake of Amy for Mary was the cause. But then I continued reading. Children were listed:

i          Jane AMOS, born Abt 1817, baptized 6 Apr 1817 at St Augustine, East Langdon (Kent).

ii         Margaret AMOS, born Abt 1820, baptized 6 Feb 1820 at St Augustine, East Langdon (Kent).

These were not the siblings I had discovered for Abraham. Yet they were baptized in the same parish he was, making them more likely candidates than the group I had found. But if his parents were Thomas and Amy, and these girls' parents were Thomas and Mary, the likelihood was surely decreased. I had to refer to my sources.

And that was when I realized that I had no primary source for his baptism. I had only an index entry. The "England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975" database at Ancestry, which cited the "England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975" database at FamilySearch, which cited FHL microfilm 1,786,622 was my solitary source. It claimed that his baptism had taken place at East Langdon, Kent, on 7 April 1821, and that his parents were Thomas Amos and Amy. Surely in all my digging through parish registers I had verified this record? But a search through my Evernote account, where I store all my in-progress documents, proved that I had discovered only that East Langdon is not a parish included in FindMyPast's "Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913," where I have been finding original images of so many of my family's records.

St. Augustine's Church, East Langdon, where Abraham Amos was baptized no matter who his parents were.
Nick Smith / St Augustine's church / CC BY-SA 2.0

So now, since I couldn't see them in the usual place, it was time to figure out where I could see images of East Langdon's parish registers. I could find them in none of the databases at FindMyPast, nor at Ancestry. FamilySearch had only Bishop's Transcripts and transcribed excerpts. I searched the catalog of the British National Archives and Kent Archives. A guide, provided by the Kent Archives, to the locations of parish registers in Kent indicated only Bishop's Transcripts for East Langdon. After about two days of using all my spare time to search every possible repository I could think of, I came to the conclusion that the original parish registers must have been lost. Even the databases covering East Langdon used the Bishop's Transcripts as their source.

And these databases had me worried. The one at FamilySearch, as I had discovered before, recorded Thomas and Amy as Abraham's parents. But the "Kent Births" database at FindMyPast gave his parents as Thomas and Mary. This was disheartening and inconclusive. Even though I have seen errors in Bishop's Transcripts in the past, in this case it would have to serve as my best possible source. I would have to consult it. That meant visiting my local FHC, which I would not be able to visit until Sunday afternoon. It was going to be a long, suspenseful week.

Finally Sunday arrived. When the time came, I hopped into my car to make the drive, just as my phone buzzed to remind me of a workshop I was supposed to attend, which had nothing to do with genealogy. With a heavy heart, I turned my car the opposite direction. The suspense would have to last another hour. It turned out to be an hour and a half before I was able to dash to the FHC, checking my clock and noting that I had only an hour and twenty minutes to solve this mystery. Had I spent a large quantity of time and effort climbing the wrong family tree? Would I have to add an editor's note to my recent blog post about the Shrubsoles that further research had proved that they were not actually my ancestors? Soon I would find out.

Within two minutes of entering the building, I was seated at a computer, and scrolling through images from the appropriate microfilm, searching for the beginning of the section filming East Langdon. It took a little while to find; East Langdon was quite far into the roll. But not too long after locating the right item, the 1813 baptism of a child with the surname Amos appeared. His parents, however, were named William and Ann. Perhaps he was a cousin, but that would have to wait. A few more images passed, and then came another Amos baptism. Ah, now we were on the right track; this was for Jane Amos, the supposed sister of Abraham. In both the FindMyPast and the FamilySearch databases, as well as the tree at Faded Genes, her parents were Thomas and Mary. The real question was the names of the parents on Abraham's record. The Bishop's Transcript, though--the source of most, if not all, of these of these entries--provided a surprise. Jane's parents were Thomas and Amy! That possibility had never entered my mind. I had felt certain that either Abraham was the brother of Jane and Margaret, and not the son of Thomas and Amy, or that he was the son of Thomas and Amy, and not the brother of Jane and Margaret.

Quickly, I looked up the information I had on Thomas and Amy's children, and saw that Jane and Margaret would fit nicely into that gap I had noticed between the births of Abraham and his older sister Susanna. Perhaps all my research would not have to be scrapped after all. Margaret, too, and Abraham, all were the children of Thomas and Amy according to the Bishop's Transcripts, despite databases claiming their mother's name was Mary. And thank goodness for that, because tracing a Thomas and Mary Amos through Kent would be a far more difficult task than the more unusual combination of Thomas and Amy. Plus, I can still claim to be a descendant of numerous John Shrubsoles. Now, if I could just find Thomas' parents...

52 Ancestors Week 6: Same Name

This week's prompt is another one that has caused me difficulty, but this time because of the wealth of options. I could write about the string of Walter Underwoods in my family, beginning with my great-grandfather, or the intriguing Luxembourgish habit of naming children after the godparent of the same sex, regardless of any siblings with the same name. I could write about the complexities of dealing with multiple John Howards fathering children in the same English parish, or the large number of men in my family named Simon Cock. My most recent research, however, has been on a string of John Shrubsoles (and phonetic variations of that name).

I have previously written several times about my great-great-grandfather George Amos, who ran the Creeksea Ferry, both pub and ferry, on Wallasea Island in Essex, England. As I have written before, he had been born in Kent to Abraham Amos and Isabella Cock. Abraham Amos, as I wrote about in a previous post, was the son of Thomas Amos and Amy Dunn. Thanks to finally recollecting that I could access FindMyPast at my local Family History Center, I have been able to push Amy Dunn's line much farther into the past.

Nick Smith / An eclectic mixture of styles on Lyminge church / CC BY-SA 2.0

Amy Dunn was baptized Emara in Lyminge, Kent, on 17 Jan 1780. Her parents were John Dunn and Mary Shrubsole. The original parish records for the year 1752 in Lyminge were completely unreadable, but the Bishop's Transcripts at FamilySearch came to the rescue with the information that Mary Shrubsole had been baptized there on 5 Apr 1752, the daughter of John and Mary Shrubsole. This is the first John Shrubsole of my research. John and Mary Shrubsole had eight children that I know of, two of whom were also named John. The first was baptized on 10 Mar 1754. He evidently died within the next six years, as the next John was baptized 17 Aug 1760. The second John's surname, however, is spelled as Shrubshall in the records.

John and Mary Shrubsole were, if you weren't keeping track, my 6great-grandparents. John himself was baptized in Lyminge on 13 Sept 1722, a son of John and Elizabeth Shrubsole. This John, my 7great-grandfather, was baptized in Lyminge on 6 Nov 1692. And the names of his parents? John and Ann Shrubsol.

My research on these Shrubsoles and allied families is ongoing, and I have been delightfully astonished by how far back the line is traceable. I look forward to untangling the various Shrubsoles in the records--not just multiple Johns, but also Marys, Anns, Elizabeths, Davids, and more--enough to write a cohesive history. I am greatly looking forward to the research that will enable me to breathe a little life into the memory of these people.

Sources:

Ss Mary & Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Baptisms & Burials 1767-1812," record for Emara Dunn's 1780 baptism, p. 23; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 19 May 2019).

St Mary and St Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Bishop's transcripts for Lyminge, 1563-1852, "Baptisms, marriages and burials, 1563-1812 (missing: 1565/6-1567/8, 1572/3-1575/6, 1579/80-1582/3, 1584/5, 1585/6, 1587/8-1592/3, 1596/7-1602/3, 1604/5-1606/7, 1608/9-1611/2, 1613/4, 1621/2, 1627/8, 1640/1-1661/2, 1708/9, 1711/2. "1564/5 return probably not for Lyminge. Does not relate to register or names.)," record for Mary Shrubsole's 1752 baptism, image #397; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 30 Dec 2019).

Ss Mary & Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Baptisms & Burials 1678-1766," record for John Shrubsole's 1754 baptism, image #14; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 19 Jan 2020).

Ss Mary & Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Baptisms & Burials 1678-1766," record for John Shrubshall's 1760 baptism, image #16; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 19 Jan 2020).

Ss Mary & Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Baptisms & Burials 1678-1766," record for John Thrubshal's 1722 baptism, image #9; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020).

Ss Mary & Ethelburga (Lyminge, Kent, England), Kent, Canterbury Archdeaconry Parish Registers Browse, 1538-1913, "Baptisms & Burials 1678-1766," record for John Shrubsol's 1692 baptism, image #5; digital images, FindMyPast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 26 Jan 2020).