Family Connections in Northamptonshire

Parish Records from Bugbrooke, Farthingstone & Hardingstone
FHL #6126893-4, #6127456-7, & #6127637-8

I began my research in Northamptonshire with the Northampton Quarterly Meeting data. I then ordered these Parish records and did a search for the same surnames in them. Here is what I found for the following families. Note: Because these Parish Registers were so difficult to read, some of the names are marked with a ? to denote uncertainty.

Family Names

The Ashby Families

Most of the Ashbys I found were in the Bugbrooke parish records. They were a numerous family with many references in the parish record books. Ashbys were in both the Quaker records and the parish records for Bugbrooke.

I found no birth or death records in any of these parish records, and only three marriages. The Quaker records contain the marriage of John Gill to Anne Haddon, daughter of Matthew and Phillipia Haddon of Hardingstone.

These parishes were obviously not the home territory of the Gill families. According to a chart in a published history of the family that I recently received, the Gills were from Whilton, Northamptonshire.

Marriages

Matthew Haddon and his wife Phillipia lived in the parish of Hardingstone. They were married in Harpole on October 30, 1651. Two of their children's Baptisms were recorded in the Hardingstone registers: John in 1653 and Edmond in 1654. There were several other Haddon familes in Hardingstone, Farthingstone, and Bugbrooke.

Matthew's father, John Haddon, married Elizabeth Hunt (Hunte as written) on November 10, 1618. Elizabeth's surname had been read as Flint by earlier researchers, but a tip from Elizabeth Lyons of Haddonfield that her name was actually Hunt led me to look at the name again. Here is an image of the name as recorded on the microfilm.

There were fewer references to the Hopkinses in these records than I had expected, even though both Bugbrooke and Farthingstone were home to a number of Hopkinses, according to the Quaker records. There are two reasons I can think of for this:

1. The first is that many of the family became Quaker fairly early in this time period. Hopkinses were mentioned in the Sufferings as early as 1663 in Northamptonshire. This note in the Bugbrooke parish records shows the schism that took place between the Quakers and the Parish Church:

Memorand: that about this time that untoward Generations of Quakers began to bury theirs Distinctly by themselves in their Gardens and Orchards in severall places of the Town all which Burials (there being no notice given of them to the Mins: or Parish Clerke) are therefore here omitted nor have their names inserted in their Church Register though there was then a considerable mortality among them as also those, of severall other sorts of Phanaticks, who having forsaken the Church would not be buried in the Church yard, but in their Orchards or backside of the Road. With them who poisoned so many others is to be reckond also Richard Taylor a Knitter, who then poisoned himself and was first buried in the highway that leads to Bugbrooke Mill at the parting of the meere towards Kislingbury and then after severall Weekes taken up, and buried on the left hand of the Northampton Way, in a bank that parts betweene the fields of Bugbooke & Kislingbury.

--from FHL #6126894, Bugbrooke Burials, 1668

I've compared the entries for Hopkinses and Haddons in the Northampton Quarter Meeting records with those of these Parish registers, and have found no duplication at all. The Quakers and the Parish churches were separate.

The Quakers during this time were actively opposed to the Established Church, and not only took no part in its services, but encouraged others to leave as well.

Fox increasingly made it his habit to enter the steeplehouses and gather people out from them. He attacked these Church buildings as idols because they were wrongly called "the Church" or "the house of God" and were maintained by the coercive tithe system. Similarly, Fox criticized the clergy for their dependence upon tithe support, calling them merchandizers of the gospel, in contrast to Christ's free teaching.

-from Douglas Gwyn, Apocalypse of the Word, p. 27

Having been brought up in a church of congregational polity, I've had a hard time adjusting my thinking to the episcopal type of church organization of the Church of England. It's a completely opposite way of thinking about the church and its governance. In reading through the notes about the Daventry Tithing Book, it came home to me how unpopular a minister might be with some of his congregation (not to mention the dissenting members of the parish). The minister was also the tax collector, since his "living" was mostly the right to collect the tithes and other fees that the church levied on the members of the parish:

In the early eighteenth century the curates' stipend was dereved from four principal sources. The first was the small ththes of the parish. These comprised the compounded tithes of the farmers' yardlands in the fields of Daventry and Drayton, tithes of sheep pastured on the town common on Borough Hill, of orchards and gardens of certain tenements in Daventry and customary tithe eggs due to the parson on Good Friday. In 1720 their value, in round terms, was £34. The second source consisted of Richard Farmer's bequest of 1662 of £20, with £6 for the rent of a suitable house (a sum raised in 1724 to £8). The third consisted of 'subscriptions,' or quarterly contributions from parishioners which varied a little from year to year, but which came to about £25 in 1720. ... The fourth element was what the Tithing Book sometimes refers to as 'obventions,' a miscellany of payments usually made up of 'Easter offerings' from the parishioners, the letting of the churchyard for grazing, a payment arising out of the town Malt Mill, and 'surplice fees' — sundry payments made for keeping the registers, reading banns, issuing marriage certificates and officiating at weddings and funerals.

-from pp. 66-7 of the introductory notes to the
"Daventry Tithing Book," by R. L. Greenall, editor,
in A Northamptonshire Miscellany, Edmund King, editor.

2. The second reason is that many of the Hopkinses seemed to have moved to the London area, as did many of the Haddons and Gills. Northamptonshire was a county with a high proportion of dissenters, and they probably felt pressure to move elsewhere. A substantial number migrated to the Colonies, where greater tolerance and opportunities were to be expected.

Here are the records I found for the Hopkinses:

This was another numerous family. I found many references to the Marriotts (in various spellings) in all these parishes. I wasn't able to establish whether Phillipia (Marriott) Haddon was related to any of these families, but I'll pursue this further. See also the Marriotts in the Harpole parish register.

This file was last updated on 7/15/2004.