Sarah Seaton (sarahsea @t ntlworld.com) of  Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, writes: I am trying to find out about a Cronkshaw family who lived in Flamstead in the early 18th C.  I have Nathan Cronkshaw born to father Nathan Cronkshaw 13 Jan 1701 Flamstead Hertford. (source www.familysearch.org) Nathan Sr moved up to Witham on the Hill in Lincs sometime before 1710 to become vicar there.  His wife was called Elizabeth and I suspect she was from Flamstead as their eldest child (Nathan above) was born there.  Nathan Senior was born in Padiham, Lancashire then went to Oxford University and obtained his BA in 1691.  I assume after this time he had some sort of Clerks job as training for Vicar in Flamstead. I have never found a marriage for Nathan/iel Cronkshaw and Elizabeth.  If you have any info that could shed any light on this enigma, I would really appreciate it.

Familysearch is only an index - and it is very dangerous to jump to conclusions without checking what the register actually says (which you can do by arrangement at your nearest LDS Family History Centre). The register actually says:

Nathan the son of Mr Nathan Cronkshaw Gent at Flamstead Baptised Jany the 11th 1701

(1) Few very entries in the register refer to the father as "Mr ... Gent" - so clearly he had some status. If he was a "Gent" in Hertfordshire one might expect some other reference to him (or at least the surname) in some of the more obvious historical sources. A quick check showed nothing, and I am sure that the parish clerk would not have been dignified by the title "Gent".

(2) If you look at the entry in isolation "at Flamstead" might seem unexceptional - but why should anyone bother to write this in the Flamstead register, particularly when no other baptism on the page is recorded in this way.  Almost certainly "at Flamstead" means "not in the church but in the village." This could indicate a private baptism and these were usually carried out when the new-born child was sickly and not expected to survive. (For this reason you should check the burial register to make find out whether the mother or child was buried within a week or two - it is surprising how many people who use familysearch, but don't check registers, claim as ancestors someone who died as a tiny baby.)

One possible interpretation is that Mr Nathan Cronkshaw, and his pregnant wife, were travelling from London to Lincolnshire. This would have been a very slow journey, possibly taking several weeks, along dreadful roads. The most likely route would be through St Albans and Dunstable and she went into labour while they were passing near Flamstead. Worried about the health of the new-born baby they called the minister to the inn where they were staying to baptise the child in case the infant didn't survive the journey.

OK, there may be many other interpretations - but the register entry may indicate no more than that Mr Nathan Cronkshaw passed through Hertfordshire for a few days in January 1701 (= January 1702 new style).

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Having said this I note that a Nathaniel Crowcher was rector of Gilston, Herts, from 1669 until his death in 1680, and the Revd John Cronkshaw, curate at Thorley, Herts, died in 1788 aged 77. However ministers of the  church usually moved around so there may be no direct Hertfordshire connection.

August, 2008

Sarah has provided an update:  I still have not found a definitive answer to my question but have found out places Nathan senior was after that time that place him nearby. In 1703 he was Headmaster at the prestigious Kimbolton School in Cambridge. In 1708 he was ordained and listed as a priest at Buckden Cambridgeshire then later he was the curate in Swineshead, Huntingdon. Later Vicar at Witham on the Hill Lincolnshire.

All the parishes would seem to be in the old diocese of Lincoln.

By the way - as Nathan senior got a degree at Oxford have you checked the records - which have been published in books form?

Sarah responded: Yes I have all of the details from the Oxford Alumini.  I have Nathan/iels father's details and can trace his history back to the mid 1500's.  It is Nathan/iels wife Elizabeth that I am trying to identify, I only have her will and no other information on her.  I was hoping she was a Hertfordshire lady, hence the baptism there of her first child Nathan in 1701 but as I mentioned a few years back I cannot find anything out regarding her.  I feel it must be somewhere, if Nathan/iel was later ordained, I would expect that his marriage was recorded somewhere, I am wondering if he could have been married at some larger establishment such as Lincoln Cathedral, maybe I'll never find out!

I understand your frustration about the missing marriage record - and the reason for the baptism at Flamstead is still unexplained. Of course there may never have been a church marriage but there may be other reasons including modern transcription errors which makes the information unfindable.

I am currently working on another "mystery" where one of the difficulties in proving what happened is that the relevant parish registers have been lost, and the Bishop's Transcripts for the period have not survived. Other missing records may be due to a minister recording the information in a note book with a view to later copying a batch baptisms, marriages and burials to the register "in a fair hand."  I have seen registers where it would appear that multiple entries were all written at the same time rather than being written at the time of the events. Sometimes there is an unexpected gap of  couple of years (sometimes covered by Bishop's Transcripts) which could be due to the rough notes never being copied into the register.

In such cases the mystery may never be solved but there are a number of possibilities if the family owned property.

Women did not often leave wills in the early 18th century - and this may provide a clue. Normally when a woman married her everything she owned automatically transferred to her husband. However there were ways of getting round this (I think by setting up a kind of trust). If Elizabeth mentioned any property in her will it is possible that the property previously "belonged" to her family (perhaps her mother). If Elizabeth's will mentions any property (particularly if she left it to her daughters) it would be worth trying to find out who previously owned it.

There may also be some kind of marriage settlement involving property - and in the case of a recent "missing" marriage query I recently found information on a marriage settlement where no record of the marriage has been found. - see MADDOX & GLASCOCK, Wormley, 17/18th century.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.