Smuggling in Suffolk @ 1820,Charles Lee Frost

[meleanor]

Thanks so much for your efforts. I only have the family written records with lots of stories of the Lee family. He was born Charles Lee, Mar. 4, 1802 in Ipswich .He was involved in smuggling and to save family name, changed his to his mother's maiden name of Frost. He had siblings named William, James, John, Charles, Hannah, Sarah, Mary, Lydia, Ann. He later married Mary Cramp and on the marr. record lists his father's name as John Frost. The family record says that Charles' father was a twin dying @ 1807, his father died @ 1808 at advanced age. Sorry for any confusion on previous post. New to this site, but I am grateful for all the help. Meli

[Kerrywood]

Thanks for posting the extra information.

Try to verify your family history records by checking some primary sources. You'll need to search the original parish registers for Ipswich for the baptisms of Charles and his siblings, and perhaps also for a LEE ~ FROST marriage, though of course the parents could have married elsewhere.

This won't be easy from your location, because of the large number of parishes in Ipswich. It would mean hiring quite a number of LDS films. Instead, as a first step, you could try contacting the Suffolk Family History Society, which offers various Search Services from their own indexes of the parish registers.

suffolkfhs.co.uk/service.html (put www. in front)

Alternatively, you can commission research to be done at the Ipswich branch of the Suffolk Record Office, which holds the original registers. Again the Suffolk FHS may be able to advise on how to arrange that.

The family record says that Charles' father was a twin dying @ 1807, his father died @ 1808 at advanced age.

Did either of them leave a will? That might help answer a few questions. The record office at Ipswich has a large collection of Suffolk wills, and you could email them and ask.

[daleaway]

Meleanor, have you seen these web pages?

smuggling.co.uk/gazetteer_e_13.html (put www. in front)
visit-suffolkcoast.co.uk/history/smuggling-suffolk (especially the links) (put www. in front)

Good for background, though I found when checking out some of the people mentioned that smuggling histories should not be taken as gospel, as they prefer a juicy anecdote to dry fact.

(I am descended from Noah Key of Worlingham, and was investigating in particular John Key, Worlingham's notorious smuggler. If anyone could find how the two were connected, I'd be grateful...don't want to threadjack though... )


Dale in New Zealand

[Kerrywood]

Dale, it would probably best to start a new thread for your query, or things will get very confusing here.