BRETT, BOOT 18-19c

[BeeE586]

I am going to make a determined effort to chip away at some of my brick walls this summer and hope that kind fellow-posters may be able to help.

BRETT
Faith Brett married Obadiah Boot at NTT Perlethorpe in 1815. Perlethorpe is the estate village of Thoresby in Notts where Thoresby Hall, now a very elegant hotel, is situated. It was formerly the seat of the Pierrepont family.

Faith was born NTT Edwinstowe, daughter of Dennis and Dorothy, and two children were baptized there to Faith and Obadiah before the family returned to Obadiah's home village DBY Shirland. Their daughter Sarah was my gr grandmother. The Boot's were a fairly prosperous yeoman family that I have traced back to the start of the registers late 17th century.

A likely marriage for Dennis to Dorothy Ward was at NTT Bilsthorpe in 1803 when Dennis was said to be 'of Rufford', also a former Pierrepoint holding.

A Dennis Brett, widower, was living alone at Wessington, next village to Shirland in 1851 aged 74, possibly to be near his daughter Faith and he was buried at Shirland. Suggested birthdate c1777 ?

Problem - who was Dennis ? I have searched every parish register for twenty miles around, and for the years 1770 to 1800, also such non-conformist records as are available without a trace of a baptism of Dennis or any siblings, or of burials. There are tombstones in Edwinstowe churchyard of what I suspect are Dennis and Dorothy of a previous generation but no other information. So far as I have been able to ascertain there are no wills. I have belonged to Notts FHS for years and have all their relevant fiche and indexes - no luck ! IGI, tried it; message boards, tried those also.

The Pierropint family papers may help but they are in Nottingham University Library and my disability is such that I cannot make the journey; nor do they appear to be available on the net.

A lot of clever and knowledgeable people contribute to this forum - please, any suggestions ?

Living in hopes - Eileen |banghead|

[Fulhamster]

Hiya Eileen!
If I were you I would write to the people at the NU Library. Explain that you are unable to get there to do it yourself, I am sure that somebody will help you.

[Peter Goodey]

How did you ascertain there were no wills? I gather that the the collection at Nottingham is not necessarily complete and it might also be worth trying the Borthwick.

[BeeE586]

to Fulhamster - yes, direct contact to the University Library is a possibility and I may have to resort to that. The trouble is - I am of a very independant nature (my late husband had a less polite term) and prefer to do my own research where possible; just need pointing in the right direction.

to Peter - in the days when I could travel more easily, I looked at the will indexes at both Nottingham and Lichfield without any joy, also the Calenders of post 1854 wills. Borthwick - maybe - but it would be even more difficult to get there than to Nottingham and I cannot really afford the services of a professional researcher. I have never had any dealings myself with the Borthwick but have been told that the staff are not all that helpful when it comes to answering questions.

Thank you both anyway. Someone, somewhere must be researching the name and I continue to live in hope.

Eileen, still |banghead|

[BeeE586]

Didn't make much progress with BRETT so let's try ......

MILLTHORPE
John Swan Millthorpe married Harriet HORNE (of LEI Coleorton) in DBY Staveley and raised his family there, including my maternal grandmother. John Swan (he always used both names) was baptized YKS Ecclesfield in 1839, son of Obadiah and Elizabeth nee SWAN who were married at YKS Sheffield St Peter in 1836. Obadiah was a widower at the time.

There is an entry in the Ecclesfield register of a baptism of Hannah daughter of Obadiah and Mary Millthorpe in 1824, but I have never been able to find a marriage or a burial for this Mary.

The next part of the story caused much head scratching, a certain amount of bad language and frustration and threats to make a bonfire of the whole confounded lot. I guess we have all been through that !

Eventually it transpired that Samuel Dimberline was in fact Elizabeth's STEPFATHER, and that she was daughter of John SWAN and Eleanor Millthorpe, married in Tankersley in 1815. John SWAN died, as did a Martha Dimberline, and Eleanor widow of John, and Samuel widower of Martha married in 1835, also at Sheffield St Peter, and are found in 1841 and subsequent cenus returns in Staveley. Cyrus was son of Samuel and Martha, not brother to Elizabeth. I spent about five years researching DIMBERLINE and its many variations before discovering it was the wrong line.

Eleanor, formerly Swan nee Millthorpe lived into her nineties and always said on census that she was of Spitalfields London. By ages given on census and at death she must have been barely 17 when she married in 1815 - how did she get from Spitalfields to Tankersly, and why ? A descendant of Mary, the posthumous daughter, who lived in London searched extensively through the London repositories without finding a clue. I have the complete list of MILLTHORPE from the IGI - no Eleanor or any variation, e.g Ellena, Ellen, Elenor, Hellena, etc.

Millthorpe is not a common name - there are many counties of the IGI where it does not appear at all - and in the 1851 census for Sheffield (which I helped to index many years ago) it appears only once, a female servant from Doncaster.

......... to be continued

[BeeE586]

There is on the IGI Obadiah son of Richd, baptized YKS Warmfield in 1735, and a marriage of Obadiah - quite possibly the same man - to Susanna ORRIDGE at YKS Wakefield All Saints in 1766. No other children of Rich(ar)d, or any children of Obadiah and Susanna.

There are some references to the name Millthorpe in Sheffield/Rotherham areas, but nothing pertinent. I searched the Yorkshire Parish Register Society Series in Sheffield Archives - there are some, but none apparently mine. Sadly, because of my disability I have never been able to travel further afield in Yorkshire. Is there anyone, please, with access to Wakefield/Warmfield registers who could perhaps find my Obadiah, and can anyone suggest any way of tracking down Eleanor.

Millthorpe is my middle name - I would like to find out more.

Eileen

[Peter Goodey]

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the surname Milthorpe is predominantly a Yorkshire name. The 1881 census shows a particularly high concentration of Milthorpes and variants in the Great Ouseburn Poor Law Union (209 per 100,000); the next most populous area was Wakefield with 44 per 100,000.

None of that answers your questions of course but you might want to bear the Great Ouseburn district in mind in case anything else turns up.

[BeeE586]

In deleting yards of repeating text in the first of my two posts about Millthorpe, I seem to have taken out part of the saga. This should come before the 'head scratching' bit.

In 1841 in Wadsley Bridge we have Obadiah, Elizabeth, Hannah, John Swan (all Millthorpe) and Cyrus Dimberline. Obadiah died in 1842 and Hannah in the Workhouse in 1843 - parents unknown - and I have both Certificates. Elizabeth next turns up in DBY Staveley where she baptizes a posthunous daughter, Mary, and later marries William BRITTAIN, giving her father's name as Samuel Dimberline, so perhaps Cyrus in 1841 was her brother.

Sorry about that - the story makes more sense now.

Peter - thank you for your post. I do know that this is an essentially West Riding name although there is a small pocket in the London area. I suspect that there must be some connection between them, which may explain how Eleanor came to be in Tankersley, but years of research has failed to establish a link.

Eileen