Saturday, November 12, 2016

The families of Winster Book - The family of Francis Wilson 1690- 1795

My last layout was the first I had done for a book Im planning on the families of the branches of my family tree who lived in Winster in Derbyshires Peak District.
I started last week with the Boam family and today I start with a branch that marries into the Boams - the Wilsons.
I must thank and acknowledge Dawn Scotting for her work on researching this family that we share.
I have started with Francis my 7x Great Grandfather.
Of course once again we know very little about the day to day lives of our ancestors back in the 17th century, but Dawn has pieced together as full a story as we can write based on the little information at hand which consists almost entirely of birth, marriage and death records.

The Family of Francis Wilson 1690-1795

Firstly, the dates of birth and death above are NOT a typo. Francis Wilson, my 7x G Grandfather did in fact live till the amazing age of 105. His age was noted in the burials in the parish records at Longnor Edge  where he died on 11 March 1795.
He was born miles away in Eccleshall, Staffordshire to father Francis and mother possibly Elizabeth, but when he moved to Longnor is not known except that it before 5th October 1728 when he married his first wife Elizabeth Burton . Together they had 8 children, and then Elizabeth died weeks after giving birth to the 8th child James.
With multiple young children, Francis need to remarry and he did to Mary Redfern, on 7th May 1747 . Mary and Francis went on to have at least 6 more children.
It is noted on the baptism records of Francis’ children that he lived at “Under Longnor Edge” 
Top of the Edge is a hill area on the outskirts of Longnor Village and at the bottom of the hill, at the end of High Street, there are a small group of very old cottages. I wonder if Francis and his family lived in one of these cottages.
Eccleshall, Staffordshire is over an hours drive from Winster on modern roads, so for the family of Francis Wilson in the 18th century it would have been a long distance away, however the family moved progressively closer to Winster over the next century. It wasnt until 2 generations later that the family end up living in Winster.  As we know so little about the daily lives of people this long ago we can only surmise as to why Francis moved from Eccleshall where he was born to Longnor where he married his first wife Elizabeth. This was a huge distance away . The walk between the two would take over 10 hours, but he was definitely a resident in the village of Longnor when he married so had not just moved there in order to marry.  Perhaps his trade was more needed in Longnor than Eccleshall. From Longnor the distance to Winster is much less ,so the various branches of the family would not  had more than a 3 hour walk across the hills of the Peak District.

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