Sheila Burch (burches @ radlettrd.demon.co.uk) of Watford, Herts, writes:  John Camp and wife Elizabeth (nee Dellow) settled in Cottered from Aspeden in 1733 (Settlement Cert HALS). They were married in Aspeden in 1715, and had sons John  (bapt. Aspeden 1716) and Thomas (bapt . Layston, for Aspeden 1718) Can find no other references to John senior in Aspeden   - and nothing likely appears in IGI . Can you advise what other sources I could try to find his place of origin?

The IGI is a useful finder but it has its limitations and its coverage is not comprehensive - for instance the British Vital Records Index includes the baptism of a John Camp at Hunsdon, Herts, on 20th August 1696, the son of Robert Camp, who would be about the right age to be your John, although there may be no connection.

The difficulty with this kind of problem is that records were not that brilliant at the time (for instance the baptismal register does not always include the mother's name) and apart from parish registers the survival rate of what records existed has been poor - especially when written on paper. In addition many records contain very little explicit family information - although they can establish the presence of a named individual in the area. Perhaps the most useful (when they can be located in an accessible place) are manorial records - which document the inheritance of copyhold property - and may include signatures of your ancestors (if they could write). There may also be estate papers that have survived. HALS is in the best position to advise.

To some extent the key issue is how much time you are prepared to spend on hard to read, unindexed, documents with a comparatively low chance of success, particularly if you want to check out all villages within 5 or 10 miles. In a recent answer (HOLLIDAY, Berkhamsted, 1780's to 1800s) I described where I found information about one of my ancestors. Let me be honest - I would have given up well before I found them if it was not for the fact that a number of my ancestors lived in the same town at the time - and I was able to collect a lot of information about them at the same time.

Sheila also asked: Do you know of any other researchers into the Hertfordshire CAMP line who would be willing to share information? I have quite a lot of research material already - mainly from IGI, Census, Parish registers at HALS. Militia lists, Wills at HALS.

The Genealogical Research Directory 2000 lists two people researching Camp in Hertfordshire, one for the same period as you. The relevant entries are

1700s, HRT, England : 33944: Mrs Karen Hart, 56 King Street, Charters Towers, Queensland, 4820, Australia. pharoahb @t westnet.com.au [contact details updated June 2007]

1800+, HRT, England: 13566: Mrs Sandra Robotham, 2 Tunney Street, Wishart, Queensland, 4122, Australia.

Have you tried posting on the Rootsweb CAMP mailing list?

August 2006

James R. Yeowell (james_r_yeowell @t tiscali.co.uk) writes: John Camp may well have been born in Essex, as the Camp surname is very prevalent in Essex and is most likely the County of Origin for this surname. Unfortunately, as you are aware, Essex isn't the best transcribed county, so the chances of finding whether John Camp does indeed belong to an Essex branch of the Camp family, is going to be difficult.

I have details of some of the descendents of John and Elizabeth Camp, but most of this has been obtained via the IGI (not the most reliable of sources, as you are aware), so it may contain inaccuracies.  As John and Elizabeth aren't of direct concern to me, I've not looked into this family much further.  I've also been unable to tie them into other Aspeden/Cottered families in my Database.

I am a Camp researcher myself, having Camp ancestors in Essex, so I am always on the lookout for any possible Camp family links to Hertfordshire.  I am also pretty sure that somewhere, this Camp file will tie into my own. If anyone has any Camp's in Hertfordshire, with possible Essex origins, I'd like to hear from them.