The origins of my paternal great-great grandmother, Maria Gill, nee Frost, were a mystery. She married William Gill on 10 April 1809, following banns, at Churchstanton (which was then in Devon but is now in Somerset, England). The marriage register revealed that both William Gill and Maria Frost were unmarried, and of the parish of Churchstanton. This meant they were both living in the parish. The witnesses were Mary Frost and Elizabeth Frost, and the marriage celebrant was Thomas Gage. All signed their names. I first identified this marriage in the early years of my research, in 1981.
A search of the Churchstanton parish registers revealed only one other Frost record, and that was a burial for Robert Frost aged 21 in 1815. This strongly indicated that Maria’s family was not from Churchstanton. Different indexes to the Churchstanton parish records are available online these days, at several sites, so it is an easy task to carry out a thorough search of them.
During the 1980s, I was advised by the County Record Office for Somerset that there was a record for the birth of Maria Frost, parents Edward and Betty, on 28 May 1787 at Ashbrittle, 21km west of Churchstanton. She was received into the church, having been baptised privately “some time before”. Her age fitted a marriage in 1787, and the distances were not too great, so I accepted this record as the birth of my ancestor.
I also identified the death of Maria Gill in the June 1840 quarter, in the Honiton district, Devon, which included Broadhembury. This death appeared to be a logical choice because Maria’s son William was working at Broadhembury in 1841 and married there in 1846.
My online tree reflected this for many years, and inevitably many other online trees copied it. Then in about 2011 I began buying the available death certificates for my ancestors, and was shocked to discover that the Maria Gill who died in the June 1840 quarter in the Honiton district was an infant aged only one year. Of course this was many years before the GRO death index was published online, which includes the ages of all registered deaths after July 1837. The FreeBMD death index included age at death from only 1866.
I then purchased the death certificate for Maria Gill who died in the December 1840 quarter in the Axminster district, which includes Kilmington, where our Maria’s daughter Hannah married in 1836. She turned out to be aged ten years.
I spent time, money and effort buying other likely death certificates for Maria and Mary Gill in Devon and Somerset between 1837 and 1851 – to no avail. They were all too young.
So I went back to basics, and reviewed my research. I belatedly realised that William Gill, a widower, had married on 3 August 1827 at Churchstanton to widow Mary Ware (nee Doble), and that they were living together at Clayhidon, Devon in June 1841. In the 1851 and 1861 censuses William Gill snr was living with his son William Gill jnr at High St, Wellington, Somerset. While William Gill snr was recorded as “married” in both 1851 and 1861, he did not have a wife living with him. This confused matters, but eventually I concluded that William had been wrongly recorded as married rather than widowed. Census data cannot be treated as the absolute truth.
Looking more closely at the burials at Churchstanton between the birth of William and Maria’s youngest known child Thomas, and William’s second marriage, there was a 4 December 1825 burial for Mary Gill aged 36, of Bush.
Thomas Gill, son of William and Mary, was baptised on 15 January 1826, of Buckleys (as transcribed by Roy Parkhouse at GENUKI – I cannot identify such a place). For some reason (there was not a new parish clerk), Maria was recorded as Mary when her youngest child was baptised, and when she was buried. This was the only Gill family living at Churchstanton at that time, so there was no doubt that the Mary Gill burial referred to my Maria Gill, especially as her husband William married again in 1826.
I identified the death of William’s second wife, Mary Gill, between 1841 and 1851 in Devon or Somerset. There were 30 possibilities, but the most obviously relevant death was Mary Gill in the December 1844 quarter in the Wellington district, which includes Clayhidon, where she was living in 1841. The GRO death index indicates that she was aged 64, which fits with her age in the 1841 census, ie 60, and her 1781 baptism year.
William Gill snr died in 1863 at High St, Wellington, and the informant was Maria Gill of the same address (ie his granddaughter who was with him aged 6 at Clayhidon in 1841, and was with him aged 18 at Wellington in 1851 – called Merian Gill).
In the course of reviewing my research on this Gill family, I found a Maria Frost born circa 1787 at Ashbrittle in the 1841-1861 censuses. In 1841 and 1861 she was with her unmarried brother Edward Frost, a farmer, at Tiverton, Devon. Edward was born 3 October 1789 and baptised at Ashbrittle on 1 June 1792, parents Edward and Betty. So indeed he was the brother of the Ashbrittle-born Maria who I had claimed. In 1851 Maria Frost was sharing a house with widow Elizabeth Sedden at Tiverton. Weirdly, she was recorded as a widow in 1851 and 1861, and again when she was named sole executor of her brother Edward Frost’s will after his death at Tiverton on 29 December 1863. I cannot find a relevant marriage for Maria Frost and Mr Frost, so perhaps it was an honorary designation, in the same way that unmarried housekeepers were often given the title of Mrs instead of Miss. The Ashbrittle Maria Frost, alms woman formerly domestic servant, died aged 78 on 15 April 1865 (ie born ca 1787) at Tiverton, Devon.
This discovery in the censuses ruled out the Ashbrittle-born Maria Frost from being my Maria, and demonstrated the value in regularly checking your research, especially when access to new records becomes available.
So if my Maria Frost was not born at Ashbrittle, where was she born? Marriages usually took place in the bride’s parish, but as already mentioned, there are no Frost baptisms at Churchstanton.
In 2011, Familysearch.org and Ancestry.com had indexed several Maria/Mary Frost baptisms in Devon and Somerset, 1787-1791, in addition to Maria Frost born at Ashbrittle. The date of birth was narrowed to these years by Maria’s age at death, ie 36 in 1825. The following births were ruled out:
*Maria Frost baptised May 1788 at Tiverton, Devon, parents James and Mary. Mary Frost married John Frankpitt 1812 or Thomas Hill in 1811 at Tiverton, which is 35km west of Churchstanton.
*Maria Frost baptised January 1789 at Molland, Devon, parents Richard and Elizabeth. She married William Crockford in 1815. Molland is 60km west of Churchstanton.
*Mary Frost baptised September 1788 at Moreton Hampstead, Devon, father Ambrose (mother not named), married William Miller in 1806. Moreton Hampstead is 75km south-west of Churchstanton.
*Mary Frost baptised December 1788 at Tiverton, Devon, parents John and Mary. Died February 1801, unmarried. Tiverton is 35km west of Churchstanton.
The following were not ruled out by death or marriage, however the distance of these places from Churchstanton likely rules them out:
*Mary Frost baptised May 1787 at Oakford, Devon, parents William and Mary. Oakford is 45km west of Churchstanton.
*Maria Frost baptised February 1789 at Molland, Devon, father George (mother not named). Molland is 60km west of Churchstanton.
*Mary Frost baptised 1789 at Sandford, Devon, parents William and Grace. Sandford is 55km west of Churchstanton.
I wondered if Robert Frost who was buried aged 21 in 1815 at Churchstanton might provide a lead for identifying Maria. Robert Frost was born and baptised September 1796 at Burlescombe, 20km west of Churchstanton, parents James and Elizabeth (nee Russell, they married in 1788). However I could not find a baptism for Maria, daughter of James and Elizabeth, circa 1790, at Familysearch.org or at Ancestry.com, and there was nothing to say that Maria and Robert were connected.
Another, more obviously relevant clue were the witnesses to the 1809 marriage of William Gill and Maria Frost, ie Elizabeth and Mary Frost. It occurred to me that they may have been Maria’s sisters, aunts, or cousins. So I searched for baptisms of sisters called Mary and Elizabeth Frost. I found them, daughters of Christopher Frost and his wife Ann, nee Grimes, baptised on the same day, 11 September 1785 at Wellington, Somerset, which is only 11km north-west of Churchstanton. I thought I had hit the jackpot, so despite not finding a baptism for Maria Frost, daughter of Christopher and Ann, I assumed that they were Maria’s parents, and that Maria’s baptism record did not survive. Unfortunately the relevant gap between their sons Thomas born August 1786 and William born April 1788 was not really long enough to fit her birth.
My folly in adding Christopher and Ann as Maria’s parents to my online tree has resulted in another bunch of trees replicating this information – even though there was no baptism record to support it.
Then out of the blue, I benefited from one of those random acts of kindness that you get within the genealogy community. In about 2016 Peter Shelley contacted me, to suggest that I look at the Frost family at Milverton, Somerset, which is 20km north-west of Churchstanton. I believe that Ancestry.com had only recently indexed the Milverton parish records, which is why I had not discovered them previously. I am not sure why Peter made the suggestion, as I don’t think he was related to the Frost family himself. Even so, this suggestion finally provided the key to the puzzle of Maria Frost’s birth.
My Maria Frost, daughter of John and Ann (nee Fleay), was baptised 30 October 1791 at Milverton. Her sisters Mary Frost and Elizabeth Frost were baptised at Milverton in 1783 and 1787 respectively. Robert Frost who was buried at Churchstanton is not connected to this family, so his appearance at Churchstanton was a coincidence.
The icing on the cake happened after I did a DNA test at Ancestry.com in 2017, and also obtained access to the DNA matches of several relevant second cousins. These proved conclusively that the Frost family of Milverton were my ancestors.
FLEAY ANCESTORS
Peter Shelley also very kindly recommended a family history publication called “Belonging”, written by Mary Beasy Fleay in 1979, and published in Australia.
This wonderful woman had spent months, if not years, in England, researching parish records, land records, and wills – piecing together a story of the ancestors of Ann Fleay of Payhembury, who married John Frost of Milverton on 9 June 1782 at Milverton.
Ann Fleay did not get mentioned in this treasure trove, because her baptism record has not survived. However her parents John Fleay snr and Ann Webber were mentioned. I was able to confirm an educated guess that my Ann Fleay was their daughter, owing to multiple DNA matches with descendants of other known children of John Fleay snr and Ann Webber.
Ann Fleay’s parents John Fleay snr and Ann Webber married on 16 February 1745 at Taunton St Mary, Somerset. “Belonging” mentioned a marriage settlement in 1744 between John Fleay, yeoman of Crowcombe, Somerset; and widow Mary White of Elworthy, on behalf of her daughter Miss Ann Webber. The marriage settlement itself does not survive, but it was referred to in an 1837 agreement between their heirs, the families of brothers John and Barnabas Wright (pp 136-142).
Before DNA matches confirmed my assumption, I determined that Ann Fleay was their daughter, because it seemed pertinent that John Fleay jnr and Betty Frost also married at Milverton, on 22 July 1787, and I guessed that they were the siblings of my ancestors, Ann Fleay and John Frost.
It was easy enough to establish that the Frosts were siblings – Betty Frost was baptised 1753 and John Frost was baptised 1749 – both at Milverton, both the children of Robert and Ann Frost.
There are no surviving baptism records for either John Fleay jnr or Ann Fleay at Ancestry, Findmypast, Familysearch, and Freereg, but Fleay is a relatively uncommon surname. However, noting that John and Ann Fleay’s younger sibings were baptised at Stogumber, I realised that there is a gap in the surviving Stogumber Parish Registers from 1742 to 1749 – ie the time frame when John and Ann were born. So those baptism records simply do not survive.
“Belonging” may not have addressed Ann, but it certainly addressed John Fleay jnr – he was the focus of the story. John jnr and Betty had two daughters only, Ann and Mary, who married brothers John and Barnabas Wright respectively – who were farmers and landowners. Unfortunately the baptisms for Ann in 1789 and Mary in 1791 at Payhembury, Devon did not name their mother – so her name was unknown to author Mary Beasy Fleay because she could not identify a marriage for John Fleay jnr.
It is not surprising that the marriage at Milverton was not discovered by Mary Beasy Fleay. Her research was done in the 1970s, before the internet, at a time when the only easily-available England-wide index to baptisms was the International Genealogical Index (IGI), published on microfilm by the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and updated sporadically. Today, the IGI forms the basis of the website familysearch.og. The IGI was, and still is not comprehensive, and covered only a fraction of English parishes. It did not include Milverton, Somerset.
If the record you were searching for was not included in the IGI, a researcher was required to physically examine the records of surrounding parishes, most likely located in the relevant County Record Office. If you were researching an individual who died prior to the 1851 English census, which identified the birthplaces of individuals, you faced a daunting task. There could be up to 100 different parishes within a 20km radius of your parish of interest. Mary Beasy Fleay faced the same situation that I did with identifying the birthplace of Maria Frost circa 1790. There were simply too many parishes for her to search in the time available to her. She was already focussing on several parishes of interest, where the Fleay family had lived over the years, and the chances of her discovering the marriage for John Fleay jnr were quite small. My problem was solved by the relevant index appearing online (eventually), but Mary Beasy Fleay did not have this luxury. So she did not identify the all-important marriage (to her) of John Fleay jnr and Betty Frost, which also meant she was not able to identify the possibility that their siblings also married at Milverton.
As already mentioned, DNA matches have confirmed my descent from John Fleay snr and Ann Webber, including matches with descendants of their sons John jnr and James, and their daughter Mary Dunscombe, nee Fleay. We also have a match with a descendant of John Fleay snr’s brother Michael.
*****
You must be logged in to post a comment.