George Kimpton (gkimp @t optusnet.com.au) of Castle Hill, NSW, Australia, writes: I am trying to track my grandfather, Samuel Kimpton, whom I believe was born in Hertfordshire around 1836 / 1839. He apparently sailed from England in the Chowringhee from Southampton 16/12/1855 bound for Sydney and took up land on the south coast of NSW at Moruya, and  I think he may have come with a brother, name unknown. He was 20 years old when he married Sarah Mary Jessop on 26th Dec 1857. They had a swag of kids as follows: Issac, Susan Maria, Samuel J, Margaret, Maria, William G, Elizabeth S, Anne, Joseph John (my dad), Arthur H, Mark, Mary, Rebecca, Reuben, Celia, and Beatrice M. He died in 1923 aged 86. Australian records show he came from Hertfordshire. His was one of the pioneer families of the area and there are some interesting stories about the life down there. I have been back to see the old homestead some 30 years ago but believe it is still there.

The obvious place to start looking is the 1851 census using the Ancestry web site. This shows a Samuel Kimpton as a live-in agricultural servant aged 12, born Abbots Langley, on a farm called The White House, St Stephens, St Albans, Herts. the head of the household being Samuel Stow. There is no reference to him in later England censuses. While this is probably your Samuel it is somewhat disappointing that he was not living with other members of the family.

At this stage I would normally suggest you look at the 1841 census yourself - but I had a peek and he appears not to be recorded, although there are a lot of Kimptons in the Abbots Langley area. In fact he is there but I doubt that you would find him - as the surname has been incorrectly indexed as Kemplin, although the original is quite clearly Kimpton. If you look at the record online you will find the following household at Bedmond, Abbots Langley:

and next door:

On the opposite page of the book there was a large family of Kimptons which may well be relatives.

Maria could be either Samuel's mother or sister - George is almost certainly Samuel's brother, and William could be a close relative.

There is clearly much more for you to do, especially as the 1841 and 1851 censuses show so many people called Kimpton living in the Abbots Langley area who may be relatives. As you are unfamiliar with the English records you should have a good look at the Tutorial and get a good modern book on researching your family history. (Because of the rapid developments online you should get one which was published in the last couple of years). Sydney is crawling with people researching their UK ancestors and the facilities available to you are extremely good with many LDS Family History Centres (see familysearch for their addresses - the nearest to you may be the one at Baulkham Hills) and many family history societies.

April, 2010

George Kimpton (gkimp @t optusnet.com.au) of Castle Hill, NSW, Australia, writes to say he has been unsuccessful in tracing any information on Samuel Kimpton's birth or baptism.

The problem is that neither familysearch (for baptisms) or FreeBMD (for births from July 1st, 1837) record Samuel - and there may be no surviving contemporary record of his birth for the reasons given in Where is my ancestor's baptism before 1837?  I also assume, as you don't mention it, that there is no relevant information on Samuel's Australian marriage certificate about his parents. However we know that in 1841 Samuel, aged 4, was living with Maria Kimpton (25) and George (2). and it is a reasonable assumption, in the absence of anything better, that Maria was his mother and George was his brother, and it is relevant to know more about them.

Unfortunately there is no sign of any records for George's birth or baptism on familysearch or FreeBMD, and in the early days of civil registration some children got missed, and at first sight he, and Maria, do not show up in later censuses.

If Maria was Samuel and George's mother, either she was unmarried in 1841, or she was married and either her husband was not at home at the time of the census or she was widowed. In these circumstances it is worth looking to see if she married between the 1841 and 1851 censuses. FreeBMD shows that a Maria Kimpton married in the Watford area in July-September 1847, and indicates that her husband was either William Appleyard, Joseph Bedder or George Edmonds. An entry in the following quarter may be a correction - pointing to her husband being George Edmonds.

A search of the census on Ancestry reveals that in 1861 Maria Edmonds (46, born Abbots Langley) was living at Bedmond with sons George (22, blacksmith, born Abbots Langley), William (17, apprentice, born Abbots Langley) and a number of daughters, the oldest being Elizabeth (12, born Abbots Langley). It was common for children to take the surname of their stepfather - so George Edmonds is presumably be the George Kimpton of the 1841 census.

You should purchase the marriage certificate to discover Maria's father's name, and whether she was a spinster or a widow at the time of her marriage. If she was unmarried it may be impossible to discover the name of Samuel's father - and if her father's name was Isaac you should have no difficulty in finding details of her baptism using familysearch and following the Kimpton line back at least one more generation.

It is worth commenting that the children born in Australia included a Maria (named after his mother?) and an Isaac (named after his grandfather?) and you may find other names (of uncles, aunts, etc) that match if you explore the Kimpton relatives further (see The Inheritance of Single Christian Names).

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