Behold,........a little touch of Harry in the night.
The argument is that the Harry Jeffries born on 26 March 1775 in Highworth, Wiltshire to Robert and Elizabeth Jeffreys and the Henry, who married Ann Belcher on Christmas Day 1798 are one and the same person, and that, therefore, Robert and Elizabeth Jeffreys are Henry's parents.
Apart from Harry, Robert and Elizabeth had nine other children, of whom four were boys. Of three of the four boys, Michael, Cornelius and Aaron, I have no information other then the dates and place of baptism, and that Cornelius and Aaron, along with Harry were with their parents when they were relocated from Highworth, Wiltshire to Kingston Lisle, Berkshire in December 1790. Thanks to Adrian Hall we have quite a lot of information about the other son, Moses, and his family. It is to Moses that we will have to look to see if there is any connection between Robert and Elizabeth and Henry.
Henry died on 9 March 1849 and was buried on 11 March 1849, the age on the parish register being given as 74. Harry, with a birth date of 26 March 1775, would have been 73 years and 11 months old. This is strong evidence for the argument in its own right, particularly when we later on look at the interchangability of the names Henry and Harry and the absence of other contenders.
The only other indicator of Henry's age is on the 1841 census, where his age is shown as 65. The age for adults on the census of that year was rounded down to the nearest multiple of five. This would put Henry's year of birth between 1771 and 1776. This supports the parish register information and perhaps more importantly does not contradict it.
There are no people with the surname Jeffries, of any spelling, in the Kingston Bagpuize parish records before Henry arrived, so he must have come from outside the village. Robert and Elizabeth and their family are not known to have had any previous connection with the village.
We know that Harry, then said to be aged 16, but actually age 15, was with his parents when they were forced to move from Highworth to Kingston Lisle in December 1790 (see page for Henry's Ancestors). Kingston Lisle is about eight miles from Kingston Bagpuize, so it would have been quite easy for Harry to have made his way to Kingston Bagpuize, perhaps in search of work.
If Harry and Henry are the same person, he would have arrived in Kingston Bagpuize some time between December 1790 and Christmas Day 1798, when Henry married Ann Belcher.
In the 1841 census, Henry, who was living in Kingston Bagpuize at the time, is said to have been born in the county, ie Berkshire. Moses, who was living in Faringdon, Berkshire at the time, is, despite the fact that we know for certain that he was born in Highworth, Wiltshire, also said to have been born in the county.
Highworth is only just across the border from Berkshire, so Henry/Harry and Moses might well each have thought that he was born in Berkshire.
The 'born in county' question is known to be unreliable because people were afraid of being relocated under the Poor Law. This may have been important to the two of them, because they had already undergone the trauma of relocation in 1890.
It is well known, of course that the name Harry is a diminutive of the name Henry and when Stephen Cook visited the LDS to look at Harry's birth record (see next section), he spoke to an experienced genealogist who said that it is quite possible for a child to be baptised Harry but later be known as Henry. Stephen has also pointed out to me that in mediaeval times, Harry was the spoken form of Henry. This was probably true into the 18th and 19th Centuries.
Every king of England called Henry has been known as Harry, as is the current Prince Henry. A grand ship built for Henry VIII was called The Great Harry.
When Stephen visited the LDS Family Site at Leeds he was able to view the microfilm of the Highworth Parish Registers which confirmed that the baptismal record for Robert and Elizabeth's tenth and last child shows the name as definitely being Harry, although we cannot be sure that the person who made the entry got it right.
On Christmas Day 1798, when Henry married Ann Belcher of Kingston Bagpuize in the church at nearby Fyfield, the name recorded in the parish register was Henry. In 1799, they returned to Fyfield to baptise their first child, James. The baptism was recorded in the parish registers of both Fyfield and Kingston Bagpuize and the name recorded was again Henry. Henry was the name also recorded in the Kingston Bagpuize registers for their other six children.
On the marriage certificate for Henry and Ann's son Moses, the father's name is written as Harry. This is the only official record for Henry, that we know of, on which the name Harry is used.
Here are some possibilities for the people after whom Henry and Ann's children may have been named -
| James | Ann's uncle and/or elder brother | ||
| John | Ann's uncle | ||
| William | Ann's father | ||
| Jonathan | Ann's uncle | ||
| Benjamin | Ann's younger brother | ||
| Henry | His father | ||
| Moses | Henry's brother ? |
When Henry married Ann he was an "outsider" in Kingston Bagpuize, whereas Ann was the fourth generation of the Belcher family that had been in the village for about 120 years. So having grown up with many of her family around, it seems reasonable to think that they should start the naming of their children using the names of her close relations.
After the first five sons, there were still two more of Ann's uncles, Thomas and Joseph, whose names could have been used. I have no information on Thomas, other than his baptism date, but Joseph was still alive at the birth of Henry and Ann's second child, John.
The sixth child was presumably named after Henry himself. However, having switched from Ann's side of the family in naming Henry, it might be reasonable to suppose that they decided on a name from Henry's side for the next child, ie Moses. After all, having used six family names, is it not reasonable to think that they would have continued with another family name for the seventh child?
Of course, if Henry and Ann had had two more children called Aaron and Cornelius, we'd be laughing.
Moses and Elizabeth had a child called Henry, baptised on 17 Jan 1813 and Henry and Ann had a child called Moses baptised on 16 March 1817. Naming a child after the father's brother is a common event.
Both Henry and Ann and Moses and Elizabeth had sons called James and John. In both cases, Moses and Elizabeth's sons were born some time after Henry and Ann's sons.
Henry and Ann's son Jonathan named his sixth child Harry.
The first child of Henry and Ann's fourth son, Jonathan was called George Henry and the sixth was called Harry.
The first child of Henry and Ann's sixth son, Henry, was called Henry.
The first child of Henry and Ann's seventh son, Moses, was called James Henry.
The fourth child of Henry and Ann's second son, John was called Moses and the seventh child was called Henry. This is the only case of a grandson of Henry and Ann's being called Moses.
It seems certain to me that Henry and Anne's first five children were named after her close relatives and that the sixth was named after Henry himself. There is also a strong possibility that the seventh was named after Henry's brother.
The information about the naming of Henry's children and grandchildren, suggests that the formal name Henry took precedence over the informal name Harry in the official recording of the names. Stephen has suggested that many of those officially named Henry were probably known as Harry.
The naming of Henry and Ann's son Moses's father as Harry on his marriage certificate, suggests that Henry was certainly being called Harry some of the time, by Moses at least.
Only one of Henry and Ann's grandchildren, John's second son, was called Moses. I do not think that this is of any importance, because he would have been named after a great uncle, which is rather distant, and there is no evidence that the paths of John and his son crossed with that of the older Moses.
When Robert and Elizabeth were relocated from Highworth to Kingston Lisle in 1790, they had with them six of their children - Hannah aged 20 years, Harry 15, Elizabeth 14, Cornelius 12, Aaron, 8 and Moses 6 years.
If Harry and Henry are the same person, we have no information at all about whether he went straight to Kingston Bagpuize or worked elsewhere first. If they are not the same person, I have found no information about what happened to Harry.
We do, however, have some information about Moses's movements from a Memoire of him written by his son,
John. The Memoire suggests that Robert died shortly after being relocated. His burial is not noted in the Kingston Lisle parish registers, but here is this burial entry in the IGI -
Robert Jeffrys - buried 15 November 1793 in Highworth, Wiltshire.
Despite what the Memoire says, I am pretty certain that this is "our" Robert. The Memoire says that after the relocation Moses spent two years as a kitchen boy in Coleshill, not far from Highworth. He then went to Magah Mill to "go with a flour wagon", for an unknown period. He then went to London, where one of his brothers was, although which one is not known. This did not work out because of his lack of education, so he returned
"to the country" where he "spent his youth" working as a farm servant. There is no indication in the Memoire about where this was, but Wiltshire or Berkshire seems likely. About October 1807 he married Elizabeth Ann Dover (likely to have been pronounced 'Duvver'), of Ashbury, and they went to live in Stanford in the Vale for about a year. The couple then spent seven years at Bedlam Farm, also in Stanford in the Vale, where Moses worked on and "looked over"
(probably meaning supervised) the
farm. In about
1815 they moved to Faringdon,
where Moses
carried out similar duties on a farm owned by Mr Penstone.
This means that we have a blank in our knowledge of the whereabouts of Henry/Harry from about 1790 to about 1798 and of Moses from about 1793 to 1807. We cannot rule out the possibility that they may have worked in the same place for some of the time, and even that Moses may have gone to Kingston Bagpuize to be with Henry.
When Henry and Ann's seventh and last child was baptised as Moses on 16 March 1817 in Kingston Bagpuize, Moses had been in Faringdon for two years, and had gone there after seven years in Stanford in the Vale from 1808 to 1815. There is also the possibility that Moses was already living in Stanford in the Vale at the time of the marriage. Stanford in the Vale is only about five miles from Kingston Bagpuize, so that meetings between the two may have been possible.
They may still have heard about each other through itinerant workers or through the carriers who moved stuff from place to place.
Henry may still have had fond memories of his kid brother.
There is also a common occupation of shoemaker/bootmaker/cordwainer in the two lines -
John Jefferies son of Moses and Elizabeth, who worked in Oaksey and Ashton Keanes, both in Wiltshire.
James Jefferies son of Moses and Elizabeth, who worked in Oaksey, Wiltshire, although by 1851 he was a Congregational Minister.
William Jeffries son of Henry and Ann, who worked in Kingston Bagpuize.
John Jefferies son of James and Matilda and grandson of Henry and Ann, who worked in Faringdon, although by 1881 he had become an auctioneer.
Unfortunately, I cannot see that this common occupation helps the argument at all, because there is no evidence of any of them working together or of one serving his apprenticeship with another.
Faringdon is the only place where we know that Moses and descendants of Henry and Ann were in the same town or village..
In the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses, Moses and Elizabeth and their family and Henry and Ann's eldest son James and his family are living in Faringdon, Berkshire.
In the 1841 and 1861 censuses Moses is living in Back Street and James in London Street.
John Jefferies son of James and Matilda and grandson of Henry and Ann, was working as a shoemaker in Back Street, Faringdon in 1851 and in London Street, Faringdon in 1861 and 1871.
In 1851 when both Moses and James were in Back Street, the occupations of the residents seem to be quite mixed up. James, who at the time was a poulterer and county court bailiff, was at schedule number 117 and there were labourers at schedule numbers 115 and 119. Moses was at schedule number 133. It is impossible to know for sure in what order the enumerator entered the households, but it is not unreasonable to think that James and Moses lived not far apart.
Back Street and London Street ran more or less parallel with each other and the back gardens of the south side of London Street, abutted the back gardens of the north side of Back Street. Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing on which side of the street any of them lived.
The shoe shop may have provided a point of contact.
Because of the proximity of Moses to James and John and because Moses had the same surname as James and John, they would probaly have known whether they were related, and if so, they would surely have met up.
Furthermore, about 1822 Moses got involved with the Church of England "when it pleased God of his sovereign mercy to call him by his grace to serve him in the gospel of his son under the ministry of the Rev Ino [John?] Predham in the Parish Church." He was evidently a fervent Christian because the Memoire says that "he began to reprove, rebuke and exhort not only the work people on the farm but also his employer." I know nothing about the religious beliefs of James and John, but they may have met with Moses in the parish church. Perhaps Moses began to "reprove, rebuke and exhort" them too!
Of course, all this deals with a period that is quite a while after the parting in Kingston Lisle and the naming of children. Also,there is nothing to suggest that James and his son, John, went to Faringdon because Moses was there. The most it can do is suggest a possible residual connection between Henry and Moses.
There is an 1841 census record for an Aaron Jeffries in Preston All Saints, Gloucester. He is said to be aged sixty, which with the rounding down would give a year of birth between 1776 and 1781, which covers the known date of Moses's brother, Aaron. Also he is said to have been born out of the county, although we know that this is not always reliable. He has a son called Henry! Unfortunately I have been unable to find a record of him in the 1851 census, which would have told us where he was born. This may be his death index - Aaron Jefferies Jul-Sep 1842 Cirencester 11 174. Also, there is no sign of a record of the marriage to his wife, Elizabeth. I have included this even though it doesn't help the argument, at least not at the moment.
As of November 2011, there is no sign of any records at all for a Harry Jeffreys (any spelling) born about 1775 on the IGI, or the ancestry.co.uk or findmypast.co.uk websites.
Other IGI entries for Henry Jeffries (or similar spelling) with a birth/christening date of up to five years on either side of 1775 are:
The names Richard, Catherine and Thomas do not appear in later generations. None of the christening dates agree with Henry's year of birth calculated from his age at death, and the nearest is three years out.
At the moment, therefore, there are no other candidates for the parents of Henry.
Has the proposition that Henry and Harry are the same person been proved and that Robert and Elizabeth were Henry's parents?
Adrian Hall, who is also an experienced genealogist, has been shown an earlier report of the evidence by Stephen Cook and would be happy to accept that, in the absence of any better contenders, Henry and Harry are one and the same person. Since then, further evidence has come to light, which has I think strengthed the case.
I would say that the proposition has not been conclusively proved but that the degree of certainty is about 95%.
Particular thanks are due to Stephen Cook, who very kindly, read the draft of this page and suggested some ideas, which I have incorporated.
