I’ve been making progress with several branches of my family over this past month and, rather than lumping all the activity on them together into one ‘mixed bag of updates' post, as I had originally intended, I'm going to split them into three smaller posts, relating to each surname. So this first post is about progress on the NAYLER (NAYLOR)1 line.
As I wrote on 5 February, when following up two recent new DNA matches at Ancestry, I have a cluster of matches who all seem to connect to me through the NAYLER family. I'd therefore made a start on confirming the information for that branch, which previously was just in a rough version derived mainly from other people's trees. I ended that post with details of a possible epitaph in St John The Baptist Church, Gloucester.
Looking on Wikitree later, I discovered that someone had created a profile there for the Herald, George NAYLER (1764-1831)2, along with profiles for his wife & three children. I'm assuming that this was possibly done because George classes as a 'notable person', since the profiles for George and two of his children had then been orphaned. So I have adopted those. I also created a free space profile for the epitaph3, which will provide another way of showing the connections between members of the family. I do like the ability to include such pages on Wikitree, along with 'Research Notes' etc, on individual people's profiles - one of my concerns about family tree programs has always been that, once people are connected as parents/children to each other, it isn't obvious what evidence the relationship is based on, and it becomes more difficult to identify those connections that are just based on assumptions. These options on Wikitree can be used to make it clear what information is reliable and what is still speculative.
One of the next steps was to try to confirm the epitaph. Searching for St John The Baptist Church in Gloucester, I discovered that it still exists, but is now a Methodist Church called St John's Northgate4. It seemed a bit strange to contact a minister directly, just to ask about their building, but eventually I decided to send an email. Of course, I didn't realise that, the very next day, at the Malvern Family History Fair, there would be a stand from the Gloucester Family History Society and volunteers there very kindly also took details of my query.
And so it is that I now have, not just confirmation that the monuments still exist, but photographs of them, from both sources, as well as a copy of a booklet showing all the monuments in St Johns, produced by the late Alan Morgan, who was a member of the church. Credit is also given in the booklet for information supplied by Dr Robert Tucker.
My thanks to the staff of the Methodist Church, and to the volunteers, Sue and Dave, from the GFHS, for dealing with my query.
Updating the pages on Wikitree is one of my next tasks.
As well as adopting the profiles of the Herald and two of his daughters, I had created profiles for his father, George NAYLER (1722 - 1780)5, and for his grandfather, Joshua NAYLER (abt 1683 - 1750)6, who are both mentioned on the memorial.
Joshua NAYLER, who died on the 14th December 1750, and was buried in St John's7, was described as a "Captain" in the epitaph, and is currently the earliest known ancestor in the NAYLER line. So he makes a good starting point for adding information about the rest of the descendants.
However, there is already an issue with regard to Joshua - who did he marry?
Over twenty family trees on Ancestry have claimed the marriage of a Joshua NAYLER to a Mary WISE, which took place in St Martin-In-The-Fields, London, Westminster, England, on 5 Sep 17178, as the relevant marriage for Joshua, before his children were all born in Hull between 1719-1724.
The marriage in London is currently the only marriage that appears on Ancestry for a Joshua, at about the right time, so I can understand why people might think that this one ‘must’ be the correct one.
However, FindMyPast shows a marriage of a Joshua NAYLER to a Mary GALL as having taken place on 30 Jan 1718, in Cottingham, Yorkshire9, and I wonder whether this might be a more likely marriage, considering that Cottingham is only about four miles away from the centre of Hull.
The marriage was by licence and I now have a copy of the licence from the Borthwick Institute for Archives, at the University of York. Some of the document is in Latin, but, as far as I can work out, Joshua was described in the initial bond portion as of Newland, in the county of York, yeoman, and then, by the time of the marriage, he was described as of the parish of Cottingham, a sailor, aged 24.
His occupation as a sailor at that time could potentially fit with him being described as a captain in the epitaph by the time of his death. However, the age would mean he was born in 1694, which would only make him 56 in 1750, rather than the 67 as stated in the epitaph.
Unfortunately, as with so many early records, there isn’t sufficient information in any of the documents to conclusively connect relevant entries together. Is it more likely that the age of the Cottingham Joshua (or on the epitaph) is incorrect, or that a couple, who were both described as of the parish in London when they married, then moved almost 200 miles north to settle down?
Or is there another possibility that doesn't even appear in the currently available databases?
Perhaps DNA might eventually help to answer this question, by indicating a connection to descendants of either the GALL, or the WISE, families. However, since Joshua is my 6th great grandfather, any such matches are likely to be related to me at about 7th cousin level, which is well beyond the reliable level of autosomal DNA testing.10
So Joshua has now become the "brick wall" of my NAYLER ancestral line.
Notes and Sources
1. Many of the sources mentioned here use the spelling NAYLER. However, the more recent generations of my ancestors often appear in records with the spelling as NAYLOR.
2. The profile of George NAYLER (1764-1831) Herald, on Wikitree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-58
3. The Wikitree freespace page for the epitaph: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Nayler_epitaphs_%28said_to_be_in_St._John_the_Baptist%27s_Church%2C_Gloucester.%29
4. St John's Northgate: https://www.gloucestershiremethodist.org.uk/churches-old/gloucester-st-johns.html
5. Wikitree profile for George NAYLER (1722 - 1780): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-126
6. Wikitree profile for Joshua NAYLER (abt 1683 - 1750): https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nayler-127
7. Source for Joshua's burial: "Ancestry.com. Gloucestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1813 [database on-line]."
8. The (potentially incorrect) marriage, included on many Ancestry pedigrees, is from the "Ancestry.com. Westminster, London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558-1812 [database on-line]", as well as appearing in the "Ancestry.com. England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973 [database on-line]."
9. The Cottingham marriage is in the "Yorkshire Marriages" and the "Yorkshire, Archbishop Of York Marriage Licences Index, 1613-1839" on FindMyPast
10. The reliability of Autosomal DNA testing: https://isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA
No comments:
Post a Comment