Genealogy Chat

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this post. Your suggestions were all fantastic and you've given me food for thought. So big thanks to Merry, Kate, Abbess Foughil of Cannonleigh, Twinkle and Olde Crone.

Sarah For a long shot, have a look at A2A, selecting both Lancashire and Yorkshire records to look at. Lots of Yorkshire land came under the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Lancashire and vice versa. You will nbeed to be VERY flexible with the spelling of his name as unfortunately A2A does not operate soundex. There is a Wild Card option, but I have never been clever enough to use it! If you cannot find him by surname, then try searching the villages - again with flexible spelling. Lancashire and Yorkshire have lots of Settlement Orders, Removal Orders etc on line. I have had most of my important finds through A2A. Good luck. Olde Crone

Abbess - wow! Thats fantastic! Its certainly going to give me something to think about. I think I'd best work out where that sort of record is held and organise a visit. Just what I needed, some new ideas! Am not sure he would have any land, but its worth looking at. Twinkle - I've not been able to find his death yet :( I presume its between 1805 (when his last child was baptised) and 1841 when he doesn't appear on the census. I did try and look through the burial records for St Mary's but again they're fairly illegible. I intend to try again next time I get to visit Barnsley library!

'Of this parish' doesn't mean he was born there. However, parishes were quite strict about who they let in (because the parish would have to support them if times were hard). He may have served an apprenticeship there, or worked there long enough to qualify, or perhaps moved there as a youngster with his family. I know this doesn't help! Do you know how old he was when he died, because it might help you narrow down if his Christening really is in the illegible bit of the parish records. Perhaps Bishops Transcripts might help?

Hi Sarah If you have a rare name, get hold of someone with the 1881 surname distribution atlas for 1881 and see where the greatest concentration of names is. That is probably a guide to where it originated. If you have linked up everyone in Barnsley, that suggests that either the line was in danger of dying out, or one member came from elsewhere. Do bishops' transcripts survive? Check them, to see if he slipped through the net of parish registers. Does poor law material survive? If someone moved into the area, there was probably a settlement examination. Look at the index of every printed source for the district that you can find and follow up the strays - if the surname is unusual, they may be related. Are there any manorial records for the area? He may have inherited a tiny piece of copyhold land and this is recorded. Best of all is where a will is recited and no other copy survives. Might he have paid land tax? If those records survive, you can trace inheritance from father to son as the amounts they were assessed were (usually!) identical from year to year. Good luck and happy hunting!

The only none birth/christening/marriage/death/burial reference I have for Jacob is a mention in the Cawthorne vestry records in the 1830s/1840s of muscians to play in the church. The singers are cited as the 'official successors of the well-known 'Cawthorne Musicians' at the end of the last century, of whom a man called Jacob Scarf sang, 'and how they go on.' Billey Clegg played the fiddle, George Schofield the Bass, Jont' . So I know he sang for the church in his spare time!

Err... probably not, I'm afraid. Kate.

I've yet to find a will for any of my Scarfe's yet. Would miners and general labourer's have items to dispose of after death? would they be able to afford to draw up a will?

Have you already tried looking for a will? Because it is possible that if he left a will it might have some clues in it. Some of my ancestors kindly left mourning rings to all and sundry, for example, or listed every relative they could think of in case everybody else died before them. And one even gave his daughter's full details off her baptism certificate! Kate.

Merry - I thought that might be the case! Scarfe is such an unusual surname, even in its variants, in that part of Yorkshire that apart from Hodgson and a couple of others having children the same time as him in Barnsley, I've managed to connect just about all the Scarfe's in 19th century Barnsley to my family! I've noticed that most of the Scarfes on genes reunited are from Norfolk as well, so I really do feel that I'm going to have a hard time getting further back than the 1790s.

This is no help whatsoever, really, but ''of this parish'' only means he was residing there are the time the banns were read/licence was applied for, before the marriage took place.....not that he was born there, though he might have been, of course! Merry

Well a few weeks ago I managed to get to see parish registers from some of the churchs in Barnsley. It was great because I managed to connect my 'known' family with a little bit of research I'd done on a couple that sounded as if they might be related. As suspected the couple were the parents of my furthest back ancestor on my tree. All well and good. I've managed to go back a generation! Now this is where things become a bit tricky. I have tried to find the christening of the father in the parish records for the church he married in (he is descibed as being of the parish on the marriage entry). I have failed to find anything at all. It was extremely difficult to read and with no idea when he was christened it could be that he's in one of the illegible bits. All this is in Cawthorne, near Barnsley and the man's name is Jacob Scarfe. There is a transcription of some of the baptisms from Cawthorne on IGI but Jacob isn't there so perhaps he is from somewhere else? Question is where? Jacob moves to Barnsley with his wife and two daughters sometime between 1795 and 1801. I've found christenings for 3 sons of his at St Mary's in Barnsley. Also at St. Mary's are some other Scarfe's christening children. One has a very rare name, Hodgson Scarfe. I've managed to track down his christening to Fewston in North Yorkshire. Fewston christenings are also on IGI but there is no Jacob there. Should I take this as evidence that Hodgson and co having the same surname is a co-incidence and that Jacob came from somewhere else? Hodgson's father was William and Jacob called one of his son's William. The other two were called Thomas (he's the eldest son) and Jonathan (named after his wife's father). Jacob is dead by 1841 so I can't use census returns to even narrow it down to a county. Where should I take my research next? Any thoughts gratefully appreciated.

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