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Isles
of Scilly
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Depending on tides and the availability of a boat, Richard Harris Ellis
sometimes waded, sometimes swam
(with an oilskin of clothes on his head) from Tresco to Bryher
when courting his future wife Emily Frost.
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Cornwall
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CURGENVEN
as a surname came into existence as an alias for an ancestor named
LEAN, possibly as a corruption of an earlier name of VENVYN? or
just to drop a common name of LEAN? There was nothing illegal in
having an alias, some people were known by different names in different
towns. Even today in English law there is nothing to prevent a person
from having an alias - they can just proclaim it. |
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Isles
of Scilly
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As
most family historians researching genealogy on the Isles of Scilly know, family history
on these islands can be very hit and miss. No parish Registers
survive from before 1726 and there are no Bishops Transcripts.
Many people on the off islands were born, named "married"
and died without the benefit of church service.
If your line includes Jenkin, Ellis, Woodcock or Hicks your search
is even more difficult due to the preponderance of these names.
My own line includes all of them!
When I was young (too young to be interested!) I was told by my
Father how we are descended from the Godolphins and that somewhere
along the line a shipwrecked Spanish sailor crept into the Family.
I wish now that I had paid more attention to his tales of the
family and island life.
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Cornwall
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Interestingly,
from the Protestation Returns
we can see that some of the names in our ancestry were very
rare in the 1640's. In the whole of Cornwall ( sadly incomplete,
see omissions ) there
were only 2 Fulpets, 1 Kirken, 1 Travallack, no Moss / Morse
& no Curgenven. This is not necessarily 100% accurate as
some parishes only included Heads of households, most did not
include females, and some people may have refused to sign, possibly
due to religious concerns, abject poverty, or they may have
been absent from their Parish for an extended period.
Cornwall Protestation Returns. T.L.Stoate,
1974, at CRO Truro
More
- including the "Protestation Oath of 1641 "
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Isles
of Scilly
Ship-wreck of the SS Delaware in a winter storm, and our family's part in the heroic rescue using a pilot gig.
Too long for this page go to -
ss Delaware Shipwreck Rescue
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Isles
of Scilly
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Gold
! ! "The Welcome Stranger"
The largest Gold Nugget
ever found was discovered by John Deason & Richard
Oats in Australia in February 1869.
The nugget weighed 2284 ounces and was worth over £9000
(around £700,000 today)
John
Deason was born on Tresco in 1829 to Thomas Deason and
Elizabeth Jenkin his wife. These Deason's are quite
possibly, no, probably related to this genealogy, one
of my GGG-Grandmothers was Mary Deason born Tresco 1767.
Unfortunately due to the lack of records prior to 1726
(destroyed by fire) it is as yet impossible to confirm
that the four recorded Deason families actively baptising
children between 1727 - 1741 were related.
There were four Deason fathers, Thomas, John, Henry
and Francis, they could have been brothers, thus linking
all the Deason families on Tresco - but we may never
know for certain. (also many children were born on the
Islands without any record of birth or baptism being
made)
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Isles
of Scilly
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GGG-Grandmother
Mary Jenkin (b. 1767 Tresco) was also known as "Aunt Polly".
The term "Aunt" was often used on the off islands for
the "wise women". These Aunts were midwives and healers,
even performing tooth extractions.
On the mainland they were known by various names:- seeress, hedge
witch, wita, wicce, these
wise women were often solitary practitioners
of a spiritual profession, people in the countryside went to them
for knowledge and healing that required psychic intuition. Traditional
village wisecraft is the survival of fragmented beliefs and knowledge
from an earlier archaic period, but not the survival of an organised
universal cult with a priesthood or covens.
Account of the Isles of Scilly, R. Heath, 1750
Witchcraft
in England.
Christina Hole,
1947. More about Healers
The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe. Routledge, 1993.
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Isles
of Scilly
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One
of the staple crops on Scilly was the humble potato ( grown
by most farmers & smallholders, including many in
this family history ) Yet the government in 1916 were considering 
using the Isles of Scilly as a breeding ground for the
dreaded Colorado Beetle, presumably to be used as a weapon
to destroy potato crops in Germany & occupied Europe.
Fortunately for the islands this World War 1 plot was never implemented.
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| If you have any info or stories relating to this Cornwall & Isles of Scilly family history, please contact me. |
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