Ipswich Record Office - 24 August 2007

With this my last business day in Suffolk (Monday is a bank holiday) it was decided that if I needed the record office, this was the day to do it. So with TomTom firmly in control, I set off to Gatacre Road, Ipswich to see if I could find some more elusive ancestors.
There are so many places to look for family history information: civil birth, marriage and death certificates (post 1837), parish records (often dating back to the 1500s), wills (not only left by the wealthy), apprenticeship records, census (pretty detailed from 1851 -1901) … With only 1 day to spend here I had to make a quick decision and chose the Parish where my last Clarke ancestor came from.
On microfiche (made from copies of the original parish records) and microfilm (transcribed copies of the original parish) I search the Parish of Wissett in Suffolk’s baptisms, marriages and burials from 1559 until the early 1900s. I found a few items of interest, but realised that my James and Elizabeth Clarke (nee Gladfield) must have moved to the Parish in the early 1770s as I could not really find much on any Clarke family before that and James was certainly not baptised in Wissett, although his children were.

Using the IGI (International Genealogical Index compiled by the Mormons) a reference to their marriage being in the neighbouring Parish of Spexhall. I only quickly looked through the Spexhall records but couldn’t locate their marriage entry on the date in question (the IGI, whilst fantastic, does include a few errors). With limited time I couldn’t do as thorough a search as I would have liked. I also quickly looked for either of their births but couldn’t find them. Usually the place of marriage is a clue to the wife’s parish (most likely where she was born) but sometimes it could just be where they lived. Definitely more work to be done here.

The other Parish records I would have loved to spend some time exploring would be Kelsale (very close to Wissett). This is where James and Elizabeth’s son, Elijah was married (1791) and settled. His wife, Elizabeth Cable, was born in Kelsale and this time I found her parent’s marriage entry!

Elizabeth is the daughter of Harper Cable and Susanna Chatten who were married in Kelsale in 1768. I know from their marriage entry that neither could write, although a Henry Chatten (possibly Susanna’s father or brother) was a witness and was able to sign his own name. On Elizabeth’s marriage entry both she and her husband, Elijah, were able to sign their own name a sign of increased access to education. Elijah and Elizabeth are my g-g-g-g-g-great grandparents.

My next ancestor, my g-g-g-g-great grandparents were the son of Elijah and Elizabeth, Frederick and his wife Susan Fisher. As they were married 28 December 1842 I was able to purchase a copy of their civil marriage certificate before I left Australia. Susan was from also Kelsale, and I am disappointed I didn’t have more time to research her family further.

Frederick and Susan had 4 children, Laura (1844), Frederick (1846), Caroline (1849) and James (1851). Frederick, Jnr, was my g-g-g-great grandfather and married a girl called Susannah Howes on 8 November 1867 in Leiston, Suffolk, where they were both living.

Fortunately, from various censuses on which they appear, I knew that Susannah had been born in Brundish, or else my search may well have ended here. Tradition was, and still is, to be married in the wife’s parish, or where you live so it would have been a long search through neighbouring parishes to locate Brundish without the clue from the census. Below are photos of Frederick and Susannah.

Below is the 1871 census return – it shows their address in Foundry Lane, Leiston where Albert, my g-g-great-grandfather was boiler maker at the works, Susannah was working as a dressmaker and they had the first of their 6 children – Albert (my g-great-grandfather) and Alice, Cousin Olive’s grandmother. (I am staying with Cousin Olive here in Suffolk, the photos of the churches included here are with the assistance of a very patient Olive who was happy to drive around the county locating old churches, taking photos and tramping through cemeteries).

This is the Leiston Parish Church From Frederick and Susannah’s marriage certificate I had learnt that Susannah’s father was Henry Howes and that she was probably born before 1846… so on the hunt again, I found her birth certificate.

On 30 March 1845 Susannah was born to Henry Howes and Mary Godbold in Brundish confirming what I had found on the census, and providing an often difficult to find, maiden name for her mother. I had searched for her parent’s marriage in the civil records from Australia with no success. Once here, I discovered why, they were married before civil registration (1837) and I now have a copy of the marriage entry stating that Susannah’s parents, my g-g-g-g-great grandparents, were married in the Parish of Brundish on 31st May 1831.

I had time for one more search before closing; so far I had spent more than 5 hours at the records office.
Ever since I found photographs of my g-g-grandmother Eleanor Youngs, I had been fascinated. Something about this lady caught my imagination and I wanted to know more. The pictures are of Albert Clarke and Eleanor Youngs, my g-g-grandparents.

Eleanor married Albert Clarke, son of Frederick Clarke and Susannah Howes and they, with their 3 children, emmigrated to Australia in November 1911 aboard the ‘Ballarat’.

From research at home I had Eleanor’s birth certificate and marriage and birth certificate of her parents, what I was missing was proof of her grandparents. Eleanor had grown up in the village of Trimley St Martin, where her mother was born.

Just a note on the above church - it is one of a pair, Trimley St. Martin and Trimley St. Mary. I think the story is that 2 sisters built the church, one each! They are literally 30 metres away from each other and share the church yard. This door is on St Mary's opposite the door above on St Martins.
The Youngs were from Walton, also in Suffolk. From the Parish of Walton records I knew that Eleanor’s grandfather was Luke Youngs and that they had probably been married in the 1830s in Walton, so the search parameters were quite small and I found it! On the 14 October 1833 Luke Youngs married Sarah Ann Warner in the Parish of Walton.

Time was up, the office was closing. A little disappointed that I didn’t get to search through Kelsale in more details, none-the-less it was a good day’s work with good results.