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  1. #1
    Starting to feel at home
    Join Date
    Jul 2018
    Location
    Australia
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    33

    Default Movement within Surrey early 1700s

    One of my ancestors was named Tosen. I traced the family from South Africa back to the UK. I thinkhave reliably managed to link up nearly all the Tosens in the UK census 1841 through 1911 and the South African Tosens to a John Tosen (born 1755 Lambeth, Surrey). John had only two sons as far as I can tell. The oldest, also John, produced only one male grandson carrying his name. The other son, William was married twice - the descendants of the two sons from his first marriage became the South African Tosens, the descendants of the two sons from his second marriage are the Tosens I find in UK GRO and census records.

    John (1755) appears to be the only surviving son of John Tosen and Hannah German / Jarman, married 1743, living in Lambeth (clandestine marriage).

    What I'm trying to do is trace this John, who married Hannah, and further back. What I am finding is a small cluster of ToSON records (with an O) in Shere, East Clandon and West Horsley. I suspect that two Shere births may be my John and his sister (dates and names fit, but it is too tentative to add to the tree). There are also a couple of marriages of Toson women (one a widow) between 1700 and the 1743 marriage in the London area (Aldgate and Soho). Then there are a few records in Lancashire and Dover that I was unsure of (either I can't access the original records, I can't decipher the handwriting to confirm the name or I don't agree with the indexing).

    Some questions I'm trying to find answers to: Where did the Tosen family come from? Is it common to have just one person of a particular surname as recently as the early 1700s? Was there any notable movement of people into Surrey from other parts of England in the late 1600s / early 1700s? How far could I expect people to move over a life time (distances)?
    Are there any particular Surrey records that might help me? (I am generally using Ancestry.) I am finding some birth and burials, but no marriages that fit.The baptism records generally only list the father, and no occupation, so is there any way of knowing if I'm talking about the right people?

    Any suggestions would be appreciated, and I apologise if I've made any obvious errors in UK geography - I'm plotting records on a map as I go, as I don't know the areas at all.

    Merry Christmas!

  2. #2
    Brick wall demolition expert!
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Lancashire
    Posts
    3,642

    Default

    I research a rare family name, and in my experience it is perfectly possible to find them travelling over great distances, depending of course on their occupation. You are unlikely to find an agricultural labourer moving great distances, but it is of course perfectly plausible that members of such a family might be for instance indentured servants, or indeed they may enlist in the army/militia.

    Spelling of names can change over time, which is unsurprising because one of the factors involved will have been the literacy or otherwise of the person recording the name, and another factor could be the accent of the person saying the name or word, and how that was heard and interpreted by the person writing it down.

    Another family name that I research is "Cousens", and for that I have found more than 20 variations, including those which are transcription errors. A great grandmother of mine, has at least two different spellings of her surname on the records that I have found, and as she was one of 14 children, I leave it to your imagination to think how many variations there are for their descendants.

    One site that might help you with geography and other general information is GENUKI. If you go to the gazetteer section you use that to find locations on modern maps.

    I checked Findmypast to see what records they have and the earliest record that they have is the burial in 1561 at Hernhill, St Michael, Kent, England of a Thomson Tosen. For that record there is an original document albeit very difficult to read.

    For the rare family name that I research I have simply recorded in a document separate to my family tree, all the early references (pre 1837) that I can find and over a period of time have been able to connect some, and others remain unconnected. That document is current around 30 plus pages. I have picked pre-1837 as the cut-off date because that is when civil registration of births deaths and marriages came into being in England and Wales, and then in 1841 there was the first national census.

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