Hello, my name is Melanie Stark, and I live in California. I lived in England for a short time in my 20s (I’m 40 now), but due to life circumstances, I won’t be traveling to England any time soon. I am trying to follow my maternal line back as far as I can. I found that my ancestor, Mary HOLDEN, was the first of my grandmothers to travel to America (New Hampshire) sometime before 1663. She was from Dover, Stratfordshire. Her mother was Elyzabeth WEDGEWOOD, daughter of Edwardi WEDGEWOODD, from Shropshire. From pouring through the online parish records and using a translator for the Latin, I found her mother was Jocosa COWPER from Shipton, daughter of Jocose COWPER (possibly from Brockton). I’m not sure if that’s her father or her mother. And from there, things are really hard to figure out because the parish records end. I found some other Cowpers in the area that may have been her parents, but I have no way to know for sure. Has anyone else come across these names in your research? If not, might you be able to point me to the next database I should check? This is a lot of fun! Thank you!
Hello Melanie
Have you seen the Muckleston Family History web site?
The information in the above web site has been well researched but don't forget to check the accuracy of any family trees you find on the Internet.
Mike
Thank you Mike,
I did check out the page, but unfortunately, none of the names of the people I am looking for are there. Really I don’t have any good evidence past Jocose COWPER being the parent (not even sure of gender) of Jocosa COWPER. And that was because of a parish record of Jocosa’s baptism in 1542. It’s my understanding that the parishes only started keeping records in 1542 because King Henry VIII ordered it. Where does one go from there? Shipton/Brockton doesn’t seem to be a very populated area, so surely there must be some kind of property records or something in those little towns during the medieval period? I’d love some advice from some experienced genealogists since this is my first real adventure with a line that none of my other relatives have researched.
Hello Melanie
At one time it was common to use Latinized versions of English names in registers, legal documents etc. Edwardi would have been Edward; Jocosa was the Latinized version of Joyce.
Hope this helps
John
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By the way, if my hunch is right (no proof to back it up), Jocose’s parents are David COWPER and Guen MUCKLESTON. Guen’s father is David Loid MUCKLESTON and her mother is either named Gryffyth, Gryggyth, or Golybyrd. But again, these are just assuming that the only other Cowpers I found were Jocose’s parents and then following someone else’s online pedigree chart that I found online. I could be way off base. And that assumes that Jocose was a single mother and gave her child her maiden name.