Family History Puzzle

Fitting the Puzzle Pieces Together

Unlike some of my ancestral lines, the Barkers and Bacons came to the States later in our history. As a result, we have many unidentified cousins in the UK yet to be found. Little by little, however, we are making connections. This blog is created to share what we know in order to find those lost cousins. Our John and Rose would have wanted it this way.

As a teenager I attended Barker reunions in mostly held in Kaysville, Utah, because this is where John Edwin Barker and Rose Hannah Bacon established their home. My grandpa, John E. Barker, Jr., and his siblings gathered with their families to honor ancestors and heritage. With the last of the children of those siblings now dwindling to just a few cousins, it is time to share our memories to a wider group, the descendents of Charlotte Barker Chapman, Annie Alice Barker Weaver, Mahala Eliza Barker Hall, Lucy Ann Barker Curtwright, Luella Barker Robinson, George Frederick Barker, John Edwin Barker, Jr., and Ruth Winona Barker Williams.

For many years Belva Hall Francom and Viola Chapman McEwen were foremost in dedicating their time to researching family history. They did so without the benefit of computers, Internet, databases, blogs, e-mail and other digital methods of storage and communication. They did it by traveling to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints genealogical center in Salt Lake City, combing the catalog for books and films, and corresponding by postal mail with genealogists and church archivists in England to collect data. At the passing of Belva, Vickie Prows and I obtained the generous of permission of the Francoms to photocopy her records. By the time Viola died, the LDS Church was in the infancy states of Family Search and her work was put online by her son David. To these dear ladies we owe a debt of gratitude.

As I began my own original research in the 1970s, I spread before me the work of both ladies. There were wills, church and civil records along with family group sheets that did not entirely fit together. The family's last verified names were John Barker christened 13 August, 1732, in Bolsover, Derbyshire, England, and his wife Mary Bell who were married 26 May 1757.  Viola had compiled a general history of Barkers in the Derbyshire area. She also distributed a family group sheet of John Barker born about 1706 and his wife Anne Barker born about 1710 including their children John Barker (1732), Elizabeth Barker (1736), and Anne Barker (1744). Belva had painstakingly typed her searches including the transcripts of Bolsover wills taken from microfilmed copies of the originals for Elizabeth Barker, 11 October, 1849; John Barker, 12 October, 1812; Francis Barker, 22 April, 1790; Francis Barker, 23 May, 1766; John Barker, 12 April, 1810; Margaret Barker, 28 April, 1814. While some of the puzzle pieces fit, others did not.

I continued to do family history work over the decades. A lingering feeling that the wills fit into the family of John (1732) Barker kept bring me back to examine them only to be driven away each time in greater confusion. Having joined the Derbyshire Family History Society, I came in contact and began corresponding with Mike Spathaky in 1991 who had compiled a Bolsover surname database largely from Bolsover Court and other land records.This database is now found on the Genuki site. In one letter Mike stated, "Barker is clearly the most common surname in Bolsover in the seventeenth century...This is why wills, where they exist, provide so much better evidence of relationships across generations than parish registers, especially where there are several people of the same name around."

In frustration I dumped all my records on Mike in the hope that someone more familiar with Bolsover and its people could look at the data with a fresh eye. A short time later and with utter delight I opened up an envelope from England to find a neatly handwritten pedigree of my Barker line. It appeared that John (Mary Bell) Barker who we thought to be the son of John and Anne Barker was really the son of Francis and Mary Barker. The John Barker christened in 1732 found on Viola's group sheet was  All the pieces fit together but in a different order than originally thought. Until the time that the wills fit our pieces together, the family had produced family group sheets using only church records. Because Barker in great numbers lived in the Bolsover area over hundreds of years, only wills could pull together the correct ones. For this vision I am beholden to Mike. Now, through the wills we see that wills at Shittlewoodside  and Coppice in the farm at  Woodside Coppice which Viola had researched. When I visited Bolsover with my sister and brother-in-law, Amy and Brent, I was able to take a picture of the farmland previously owned and cultivated by our ancestors
.

Looking towards Woodside c1990s

Undoubtedly the earlier John (abt 1706) and Anne Barker (1710) married in April 1727 with children John, Elizabeth and Ann, are indeed our people as well. Perhaps they are the descendents of Humphrey Barker and Hannah Cantrill. Mike's records show that Derbyshire was teeming with Barkers.Both John Barker lines are found on the Family Search web site. My brother, John, and I have in recent years been attempting to put together related Barker family group sheets mainly from other wills. We have been privileged to see that temple work has also been done for these side lines as we feel they are cousins of one degree or another.

Barkers of Bolsover

Barker Farms 1600 to 2000

            Barkers for generations have farmed the land. It’s intriguing to believe that love of the land may have been inherited from ancestors who first worked Derbyshire manor farms in the sixteenth century. Perhaps this trait explains why my father, while serving as an elementary school principal in Utah for forty years, insisted on also maintaining a cherry orchard, hay fields and a few animals. Are other Barker descendants around the world tending rose gardens or vegetable plots as evidence to those who tailed in medieval times?  

            The name Barker is one of the most common names in Bolsover in the 1600s. Manor court records of Bolsover and Clowne now collected in the Nottingham Records Office list many references. In 1658 on April 12 Edward Barker and Humphrey Barker of Clowne were fined 2 pence for not appearing at the Leet. Edward, Nicholas and Thomas Barker were each assessed 4 pence for breaking the assize of ale. On April 9, 1683 Edward was again fined at court, 4 pence for encroaching with a house and yard on the Lord's wests and 4 pence for encroaching on Shittlewood Coon. While others on the records such as Henry, Peter, Richard, Robert,  Thomas and William Barker were named for the offenses of not appearing at court or being party to a neighborhood dispute, Edward seems to have been repeatedly building without permission. During the 1683 Leet he and George Hall paid 2d apiece for stairs. His offenses must not have been too serious, however. As recorded in the diary of Benjamin Grainger of Bolsover which preserved by the Derbyshire Archeological Natural History Society, Edward was appointed Thirdborough for Bolsover, an officer of the court, in 1694.

            The men mentioned in the seventeenth century Leet and Baron Court records may have been sons of Thomas (cl520), George (cl530) or Peter (cl540) who left wills in Bolsover during the period 1569 to 161o. George Barker's will written September 8, 1599 in the eighth year of the reign "of our most gracious Queen Elizabeth", states that he is a yoeman of Oxroft in the county of Derby. He leaves to his sons the following: Nicholas - one great gun, John - one cow, and Edward - one cow. To Alice, his wife, he leaves the "use /of / the farm possessed by me during her life". Among the goods and chattels inventoried at his death in November of that same year are four oxen, four kynne, one sow and eight pigs, corn and hay at the house, coverlettes, mattresses, sheets and other linens. The sum and total came to 36 pounds, 3 shillings, 8 pence.

Looking over a hedge to Oxcroft. c1990s

            Oxcroft, an the northern edge of Bolsover parish, was a separate manor from Bolsover. It belonged to the Dukes of Devonshire whereas Bolsover Manor was in the hands of the Dukes of Portland (earlier Dukes of Newcastle). Both lines descended from Bess of Hardwick. A map of Oxcroft Manor made by William Senior for the first Duke of Devonshire in 1611 names seven tenants residing on croft or close. They are listed as John Barker, Humphrey Barker, Francis Barker among others. The name Henry Barker also occurs on a separate survey. Presumably these are the same men or sons of those found in earlier court records. Crofters were farmers who rented sections of their lord's large estate. 

Oxcroft 1611 Map now in the possession of the present Duke of Devonshire located at Chatsworth.

             My direct ancestry can be traced to Humphrey Barker and Hannah Cantrill married June 2, 1668 in neighboring Ashover Parish, Derbyshire. Parish records describe them as Humphrey of Dicklant and Hannah of Baslow. The couple were parents of a family of ten children born from 1669 to 1692 in the same parish. We trace their son, Francis (1692), back in Bolsover from a will left in 1766 which lists a wife, Mary, and two surviving sons, Francis (1727) and John (cl730). The sons inherited two farms at Coppice and Woodside respectively, the last by way of the father's late sister, Patience Godley. 

            The first son, Francis (1727), married Margaret Pass September 12, 1759 in Bolsover. They died without issue. Francis will directs that after the death of his “loving wife” all goods and tenant rights to the farm at Coppice go to “my nephew, John Barker (1765), now living with me”. By the time Margaret dies in 1814 the nephew, John, is also deceased so she wills her estate to John's wife, Elizabeth, with the instructions:  “... after the decease of the said, Elizabeth Barker, I give and bequeath the same ... unto John Barker the only son of my late nephew”.

 

Bolsover Parish Churchyard c1990s

            The second son of Francis Barker Sr., John (cl730), married Mary Bell May 26, 1757 in Bolsover. This couple also were parents to ten children, five females and five males.  Because the heirs of this son, John (1765), were to inherit the Coppice farm from his Uncle Francis as detailed above, the second farm at Shittlewood Side was entrusted to a spinster daughter, Elizabeth (1774). In his will dated October 12, 1812 the father states, “I, John Barker of Shittlewood Side in the parish of Bolsover in the county of Derby and diocese of Litchfield and Coventry, farmer,...give and bequeath to each of my four daughters ... the legacy or sum of twenty_five pounds. Also, I give and bequeath to my grandson, John Barker, son of my late son, John Barker of Coppice deceased, the sum of two guineas ... Also, I give and bequeath ... to my daughter, Elizabeth Barker ... whereas /she/ hath greatly assisted me in the management of the farm I now occupy under His Grace the Duke of Portland ... the whole of the tenant right ...”

            As proven by wills, farms in the Bolsover area were tended by Barker farmers both male and female for generations. My great-great grandfather, Frederick John Barker, was born December 12, 1837 in Bolsover Parish, the sixth of fourteen children. Although history does not detail the reason why, he, as did other generations, eventually moved from the farms that in previous times had been managed as part of privileged estates. Farming, however, was still in his blood. At his death at the age of 37 the certificate lists his occupation as farm laborer. He died in Mosbro, Eckington of fever which tradition states resulted from an accident with a horse. His son, my great grandfather, moved as a young man to America, first to Wyoming and then to Utah. He worked as a coal miner but something green must have stirred the spirit, reaching down the centuries; he always maintained a garden plot and chickens. Three generations later my brothers, his great grandsons own a plant nursery in the town of Fruit Heights.

Nursery produce: hanging baskets, Mountain Road, Fruit Heights, Utah. 2012.

Note: This article written by Fawn Barker Morgan was originally published in the Derbyshire Family History Society newsletter c1990s.