ANTHONY family in Hants, 1600's

[ProspectHill]

Hi, All.
My Anthonies have been here in New England almost 400 years. My Dad grew up on ancestral land, in the ancestral home. The primogenitor, John A. m. Susannah Potter and they began having children about 1642. He d. in 1675, Portsmouth Rhode Island, and his death notice says he was "a Hamshere man in old England". Anyone ever hear of an Anthony family in Hampshire in the early 1600's?

I have just started making transcriptions for FreeREG; we'll see how it goes!

Best wishes to all, and a happy spring.
ProspectHill

[ProspectHill]

Hi, Bo Peep.

Thanks, but it doesn't look like it! Maybe it's a catchy heading that's missing, but you can see that hardly anyone (Thanks for looking, you 20) is interested in my family.

Mr. Savage, in 1860, wrote a book that stated that my John ANTHONY was born in Hampstead in 1607. He was quite certain, but mentioned no source. Now everyone thinks this is IT, but his death notice, mentioned before, makes me believe otherwise. The church in Hampstead doesn't know him. Arlene thinks he may have been from Devon.

Any good ideas, anyone?

[birdlip]

Hi there,

I searched the Hampshire burial index for Anthony/Anthonie entries, from 15.. whenever it starts to 1640. There are 50 in all, starting with Johanne Anthony buried at Romsey on Sep 1st 1574. The index is searchable online at family history online, the federation of Family History Societies. Just google it, I don't think I'm allowed to give you a direct link, as it would be regarded as advertising. Its supposed to be a complete list, so its tantalising for you really, because its likely that your Johns parents are on there. Somewhere!

IGI Family Search also has a number of Anthony families, I expect you've already looked there. I did notice the entries for Hampstead, but since they were patron submitted, I ignored them. Having now read your second post, its obvious someone has submitted them on the strength of the information in that book, and this is how errors get repeated!

I had a quick look yesterday anyway, just at entries pre 1650 in Hampshire, though you have to wade through a lot of others, and it will take time for you to look at all of them. Worth it though I think. Even scrolling through for around fifteen minutes, I only found ten, and I just finished the "A" names, Agnes, Alice, Ann...There already seems to be a pattern emerging though, which is what I was hoping for. Of the ten; seven were from Romsey, and one each from Eling, Nursling and East Wellow. Romsey is a few miles inland from Southampton, on the Andover road, and the other three villages are all nearby.

Its a start anyway!! Unfortunately of course, you may never be able to absolutely prove which family your John came from, unless you're lucky enough to find something concrete, like a will, but you never know!

I hope some of this helps anyway. Probably not so many have looked at your post because of the date in the 1600's. Most people are much more familiar with searching in the 18th and 19th centuries.

regards birdlip

[birdlip]

Hi again, just a thought...

do you have any names of others who arrived around the same time as John Anthony? They may prove to be family members or others from the same village or town. It could help to narrow it down a bit!

[ProspectHill]

Whee! Thank you thank you thank you. I actually have not looked yet, but just to have a little directional marker is such an encouragement!

USA has many Anthonies - mostly descended from the English John and Susannah, but also, more recently, Albanians and Lebanese. This makes it more fun for the future Anthonies!

It's funny about the movement of names - I am, genetically, more Coggeshall than anything else, through cousin-marriages. But when I went to the village/town of Coggeshall in England, where the Rhode Island Coggeshalls most definitely came from, there are no people with that name in the phone book! I wonder where they all went? (This is not really an area of interest, just idle curiosity).

OK, here I go, looking up a new alley. Thanks again, Birdlip!!

[birdlip]

I'm glad you think it'll be helpful.

You need to be very methodical, and sort all the names into family groups, as much as you can. Then, if you can tie in the burial index information, you may end up with something a bit more useful than the repeated Hempstead, London entries on IGI!

Its probably a good idea too, to make a record of who the girls married, the same surnames may crop up on the ship, or with John in America. Also, hopefully, you may have some unusual first names amongst Johns descendants on Rhode Is, which could turn out to be family names from ' Hamshere in Ol England'.

Good luck anyway, and let us know how you get on, won't you?

regards birdlip

[Geoffers]

Mr. Savage, in 1860, wrote a book that stated that my John ANTHONY was born in Hampstead in 1607. He was quite certain, but mentioned no source. Now everyone thinks this is IT, but his death notice, mentioned before, makes me believe otherwise.

I think you are right to be sceptical of the 19th century book, there was an awful lot of squit published which was not based on genuine research and just put together to satiate the desire to be able to trace roots of a family.

If you have definitely been able to trace your family back to the old bor who popped his clogs in 1675, then in your shoes I would be more inclined to accept the death notice as being more accurate and begin from there.

I would suggest trying wills to begin with as they are such a great source of information. Wills were proved in different courts according to a a set of rules - I can explain them if it would help.

The highest probate court was the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) and their wills are available online. You'll need to use The National Archives (TNA) web-site and look at 'dcoumentsonline'. As an example, I did a search and came up with these results for the name John ANTHONY. There don't look to be any exact matches to the 1675 death, but then the will from 1703, Rhode Island looks quite interesting. The wills cost £3.50 each to download (I think that's about seven dollars?). Click on refine search and you can amend the search as you wish - you might try different spellings of the surname - ANTHONIE and ANTONY

If you download a will and find the handwriting difficult to interpret, just post the URL you are given here and we'll have a look for you.

'tis difficult to access many of the types of record that may be useful, from across the pond - sorry - Birdlip has already suggested the National Burial Index (NBI) which is available online.

If your family were farmers and so landholders, the may have held land directly from the Crown (the landholder was called a 'tenant in chief by knight service'), in which case they would have needed permission to dispose of the land - this was called a 'licence to alienate' and the records are held at TNA. For anyone who died prior to 1660 who held land by tenure in chief, there would have been a inquiry the Escheator into the landholding and what rents/services were due and who inherited the holding.

TNA has loads of research guides to give ideas, for example

Family History, medieval and modern sources

Inquisitions Post Mortem

Manorial Records

Courts of Wards and Liveries

You are entering a period where research becomes more complicated to establish ancestry and find out about the lives of those people. You will need to familiarise yourself with

Secretary Hand (The style of handwriting used) - click here

Some basic Latin is likely to help - click here

Fare y'well tergerther

[ProspectHill]

Thanks, Geoffers and Birdlip.
I went and spent a bunch of 6p's with the FFHC or whatever yesterday; what fun! Can't wait to find the birth and marriage registers! I have been looking at the Romsey area on the Google maps, and other fascinating things. The British have impacted their landscape, while keeping it green, in your 6000+ years of occupation, in fabulous ways. Moats and avenues and dikes and crop circles!

So, anyway. I have been to London, and to the Goldsmiths Hall and various record offices. My niece who lives there got a bunch of PCC wills before they were online (they are not ALL online) and I LOVED transcribing them. But now I don't know if I am related to that bunch. They were interesting people, and I figured out a lot that was scrambled and obscure - did Dr. Francis Anthony really have seven wives??? No, of course not. I worked most of it out.

Next: where would wills from Romsey be?

Adios,
Ellen Anthony

[Geoffers]

Next: where would wills from Romsey be?

They are likely to be held at Winchester - see this link to the Hampshire RO

But there would have been more than one court which granted probate, one for each Archdeaconry within a diocese, and then one for the Dicoesan Court........basically, you may have to check more than one catalogue.