When was Josias Inch and Jane Hoskin married? 1763 or 1764?

With relatively easy to use online genealogy databases and images along with the capabilities of computers to search large amounts of data very quickly, today's genealogy research can be very easy at times. Yet, it can also be challenging at the exact same time. This is one of those cases.

At the Ottawa Public Library Local History & Genealogy Drop-In Club that meets every second Tuesday at the Nepean Centrepointe staff of the OPL and members from the Ottawa branch of Ontario Ancestors attempt to help those researching their family tree by providing guidance and suggestions. A while back we had a question about the Inch family that resided in the Port Hope area of Ontario. Since then we've been working with that researcher every few sessions digging through the records and providing suggestions as to where to look next to answer questions about the family. Recently I ran into her at the Ottawa Stake Family History Center where she was working on researching her Inch family that came from Cornwall, England. She had the basic details of the family in Cornwall from other sources but now she was looking for the records to confirm or refute the information that had been provided to her¹.

But on with the research...

For today's research problem we are looking for the date of the marriage for Josias Inch to Jane Hoskin. According to research by others, they were married in St. Breward, Cornwall, England in the mid to late 1700s.

For records in England I often first head over to Findmypast. Findmypast started in England as the 1837online.com site with images of the General Register Office register pages. While they have branched out from just English collections they have continued to enhance their offerings of England and UK records with new collections being added almost every week.

In searching for Josias Inch in Cornwall within the Parish Marriages of the Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers) collection for England we came up with seven matches with four of those matches in the time period we are interested in.

Screen capture of search results for Josias Inch in Parish Marriages on Findmypast.com

This makes it easy since the first three results all seem to agree that the marriage took place in 1763. The last result is actually the same as the first but just presented in a different format.

The Phillimore Marriage Registers, 1531-1931 collection is made up of the marriage registers transcribed and published by William Phillimore Watts Stiff (later he changed his surname to be Phillimore) prior to his death in 1913. Yes, I could save the image provided by Findmypast to my computer but, from the transcription provided by Findmypast, I learned that the transcribed record for the marriage of Josias Inch and Jane Hoskin can be found in the Cornwall Parish Registers Volume 1. A quick hop over to the Internet Archive and a few minutes of searching I was able to find the complete volume there. Even better, I could download that book to my computer!

W. P. W. Phillimore and Thomas Taylor, editors, Cornwall Parish Registers. Marriages  (London, England: Phillimore & Co., 1900), 1: 22; marriage of Josias Inch and Jane Hoskin, 14 Feb 1763.

Well that was easy. We can stop right there and we are done, right?

Not quite.

There is an asterisk '*' beside the entry. At the bottom of that page we see that the asterisk means that the information is from the Bodmin Transcripts. Why didn't Phillimore just use the parish registers. On page 5 of this volume he explains that between 1753 to 1813 the church marriage records are apparently missing and he made use of the extracts made by Rev. Thomas Taylor, M.A., Vicar of St. Breward. These extracts were created from the Archdeacons' Transcripts held in Bodmin, Cornwall, England.

What about the other two transcripts for the marriage of Josias Inch and Jane Hoskin? The transcription from the Cornwall Marriages collection was made by the Cornwall Family History Society but we don't know where they got their information. But it does states the marriage took place on 14 Feb 1763 in the parish of St. Breward. The record from "England, Boyd's Marriage Indexes, 1538-1850" was provided by the Society of Genealogists and only states the marriage took place in 1763 in St. Breward. Again, we don't know the source they extracted this information from.

Can we possibly find the Archdeacons' Transcripts somewhere else?

Often the place I turn to for more records is FamilySearch. A search of their catalogue reveals that they have in their digitized collection the "Bishop's transcripts for St. Breward, 1676-1773" that was microfilmed from records at the District Probate Court in Bodmin, Cornwall. What is nice about this collection is that you can view it from the comfort of your own home.

In looking up the details about these transcripts for Cornwall, it seems that the Archdeacons' and Bishop's transcripts might be the same since Cornwall was an Archdeaconry. A Bishop's or Archdeacons' transcript isn't necessarily accurate since it is a copy of the parish register but in our case, with the missing register entries for the years we want, it is the best we have.

Parish of St. Breward (St. Breward, Cornwall, England), "Transcript of the Register Book of the Parish of Simon Ward alias St Bruer, March 1763 to May 1764," marriage of Josias Inch and Jane Hoskin, 14 Feb; FHL microfilm 90,240, item 7, image 770.

But notice a little problem...

The dates for the marriage entries are from March 1763 to May 1764. However, all those other records we looked at on Findmypast from various collections all state the marriage took place in either February 1763 or just 1763. However, in the calender's I've used, February comes before March. If we look closely at the entries we see the months increase until after the marriage of John Colmer when it goes from November to February for Josias Inch's marriage followed by another marriage in the parish taking place in April that was recorded after Josias'. That would mean that according to this transcription they were married in 1764 NOT 1763!

Could we have uncovered a century long error in the records that ancestors of Josias may have been using? I think so. It is a problem I've seen before in transcriptions of parish records since often they go from Lady Day (March 25) to Lady Day².

From this I believe we can safely state that Josias Inch of the Parish of St. Tuly and Jane Hoskin of the Parish of St. Breward were married on 14 Feb 1764 in the Parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, England.

This becomes yet another reason why we always need to hunt down the records that transcriptions are created from.

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1. It is something we constantly harp on in the Drop-In Club. Always read the information on the image and if no image is provided look for source of the transcription. We also stress the need to be organized whether using paper or a computer for your record keeping.

2. Lady Day was, before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in England and it's colonies in 1752, the start of the new year.

Transcriptions and Their Sources...An Adventure

One the many challenges often faced by genealogy and family history researchers is finding the original source of those transcriptions we often use in our family trees. Over the past week that has been a consuming task for me as I prepare to work on updating and creating source citations for the entry of my 4th great-grandfather Joseph Starr (1757-1840), son of Samuel Starr and Abigail Leffingwell, on Wikitree.

Starr's Point Cemetery ( Kings County, Nova Scotia), Joseph Starr (died 8 Jul 1840) marker; personally photographed and read by Ken McKinlay, 17 Sep 2009.

Up until very recently one of the resources I turned to for early records in the area of Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada that my Chipman and Starr branches originally settled in in the 1760s has been the "Township Books, Kings County: Aylesford, Cornwallis, Horton" compiled by Lorna Woodman Evans in 1996¹. It is still an important reference book for me since it lets me quickly locate information on the families I'm researching in that area.

On page 120 in the compilation by Lorna Woodman Evans she recorded:

"Joseph Starr died at Cornwallis in 8th inst. aged 84,
one of the oldest inhabitants of that port of N.S.
- Haligonian of 18 Aug. 1840."

This would mean he died on 8 Aug 1840 but his marker says he died on 8 Jul 1840. An ugly conflict that needs to be resolved.

With the digitization project by FamilySearch of the microfilms in their possession I've been able to find copies of the Horton Township book, 1751-1895 and the Cornwallis Township and church records, 1720-1920 on FamilySearch.org.

This is where my latest research adventure really starts.

When I reviewed² the digitized copy of the Horton Township book found on FamilySearch I couldn't locate that entry for Joseph Starr. Of course, what made it more of a challenge is the Township book isn't exactly in alphabetical order by family name. The older part of the book is mostly sorted by family name but later sections are a mishmash with family groups interspersed with pages listing deaths for a specific year. After much reading I was able to locate all the other Starr entries in Horton Township except for one...Joseph's. So I went back to the beginning, the beginning of the compilation that is, and read the explanatory notes by Lorna. There she wrote:

"The Horton Township records are preserved in copies of at least four slightly different books. Three copies are found in the K.H.S. Family History Library: one is a photocopy of an original book kept by the Horton Dyke Commissioner, another is a microfilmed copy of a handwritten book with added margin notes and the third is a microfilmed copy of a very neatly handwritten record with entries as late as 1895. In addition to these three copies Douglas Eagles mentions a transcript of the Horton Town Register held at the Public Archives of Canada³ in Ottawa."

"We want to thank Douglas Eagles for allowing the use of his Horton Township Records which he published in 1974. Nearly all of the Horton information recorded here came from his work, with the exception of a few details found in the third copy of the township book previously mentioned."

Based on the handwriting and the FamilySearch description that third copy of the township book appears to be the one that FamilySearch microfilmed and recently digitized. The beginning of the digitized microfilm states that it came from the "Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Halifax.Can." with the title recorded as "Horton Township MG-4 Vol 74." This matches the description found on the Nova Scotia Archives page for the Township book of Horton Township, Kings County.

Since I reside in Ottawa I figured I'd check if a copy of Douglas Eagles' book was available at Library and Archives Canada since it appears they heavily relied on his work. A search using LAC's Aurora system revealed that his "Horton Township records, Kings Co., Nova Scotia : register of births, marriages and deaths, 1751-1895" was available. I was doing this research from home but with the new Aurora system I could place my order without having to visit LAC. However, with it being a preservation copy it could take between 2 to 5 business days to be retrieved. To my surprise I received an e-mail the next day stating the book was waiting for me at Library and Archives Canada. A day later I popped into the Special Collections room and quietly began to check out Mr. Eagles book. This time I started at the beginning and came across this little but significant note on page iii:

"Notices of a few marriages and obituaries gleaned from the "Haligonian" and the "Nova Scotian" by Ross Graves of Upper Stewiacke, N.S., and 'bible' information on several families contributed by John Duncanson, 193 Queen St. Sarnia have been included and gratefully acknowledged."

I also came across the entry for Joseph Starr's death on page 77:

"Joseph Starr d. at Cornwallis on 8 inst aged 84 years, one of the oldest
inhabitants of that part of N.S. Haligonian of 18 Aug. 1840."

Could it be that those several days of reading and rereading the digitized microfilm was for naught? Could it be that Mr. Eagles added information not found in the Township book? It seems that way.

What about the Haligonian newspaper? Could I find a copy at Library and Archives Canada? No such luck. Maybe at Nova Scotia Archives? Well...sort of. They only have the 7 Aug 1840 edition of the Haligonian and General Advertiser. That's "annoying". A search using Worldcat reveals that both Acadia University in Wolfville and the University of Kings College in Halifax have copies. But they can only be consulted on-site and popping over to Nova Scotia, as much as I would love to, just isn't in the cards for the immediate future. So yet another to-do item goes into my genealogy research software.

However, if the notice was in one newspaper might it be found in other newspapers of the time in Nova Scotia?

On the shelves of the Genealogy Services room at Library and Archives Canada you can find a number of books with transcriptions and family histories. I found "Vital Statistics From Halifax Newspapers, 1840-1843" compiled by Jean M. Holder and assisted by Grace L. Hubley and published by the Genealogical Association of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1985 in Halifax. There on page 27 I came across:

"A.R., Sat., 15 Aug. 1840
454. + 8 July at Cornwallis: Joseph STARR, 84"

From checking the list of acronyms at the start of that compilation I learned that "A.R." is the Acadian Recorder. I also know that Nova Scotia Archives in their Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers collection has placed online a digitized copy of that newspaper. Even better, they have the 15 Aug 1840 edition available. Here is the entry clipped from that edition of the Acadian Recorder.

"Died - Joseph Starr," Acadian Recorder, 15 Aug 1840, p. 3, col. 1; digital images, Nova Scotia Archives (https://archives.novascotia.ca/ : accessed 19 Oct 2019), Nova Scotia Historical Newspapers.

Hmmm, "8th ult."not "8 inst". This puts his death as occurring on 8 Jul 1840.

Now I at least have the information on the grave marker which states he died "July 8th 1840" matching up with at least one newspaper. That's a good thing. I still need to review the Haligonian at some point in the future to see if the transcriber made a mistake or the newspaper was in error when originally printed.

During this research escapade I also took the time to check Thematic Guide 1206 to Parish Registers⁴, Volume 1 found in the second floor Reference Room of LAC. I often consult that guide to see if there are parish registers held at Library and Archives Canada that might help me out in my latest quest. Unfortunately they haven't digitized this 2 inch binder so it can only be reviewed onsite. However, I did see that they have listed several entries for Horton, Kings County, Nova Scotia:

• C-3027: Civil registers BMD 1751-1895 (MG 9, B 9-7)
• C-3021: St. John's Anglican Church, Cornwallis, Annapolis Co. B 1783-1902, M 1783-1911, D 1830-1920 includes Horton, and Wilmot.
• C-3022: St. John's Anglican Church B 1823-1877
• H-1806: Eagles' Compilation of Township Registers, etc. BMD 1751-1895
• H-1806: Eagles' Cemetery Recordings for 19 Horton Township cemeteries BD 1767-1873

Could the "Eagles' Compilation of Township Registers, etc. BMD 1751-1895" be the same as the book I read in the Special Collections room?

It just so happens that the Héritage Project site holds digitized copies of a number of the C, H, and T microfilms from Library and Archives Canada. It isn't the easiest site to navigate but when it comes to being able to research from the comfort of your home I'm not going to complain too loudly. A quick check and I discover that H-1806 is in fact digitized and available on the Héritage site. After a few minutes of bouncing around the 810 pages of that digitized reel I found the start of Mr. Eagles book (explanatory notes starting on image 151). So now you too can review his material from your home.

A few lessons to take with you if you've made it this far in my post:

• If you have conflicting information then take the time and effort to resolve the conflict. You might be surprised at what you find.
• Always read the introduction pages to any transcription books. You may find clues as to where they got the information. You might even discover new facts and sources.
• If a book cites another book, make sure that you review that book also (repeat as often as necessary to get to the original source).
• Not everything is digitized and online but it is getting better over time.

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1. Evans, Lorna Woodman, compiler. Township Books, Kings County: Aylesford, Cornwallis, Horton.  Kentville, Nova Scotia: Family History Committee of The Kings Historical Society, 1996.

2. Not just once but I looked through that digitized copy for many hours over several days!

3. Now part of Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.

4. Yes, I keep asking the Genealogy Services staff when they will have that guide available online since it is invaluable to those using the Héritage Project site.