BOXALL Genealogy

This week I've been pondering on one particular BOXALL line. Of course it involves several generations with William as the first name. As you know the further back you travel in the family the harder it becomes to make a definitive choice of who married who. With only Parish Registers to go by and Wills there is little to help with the average family in England in the mid-1700's.

Charles BOXALL b. 1818 to William BOXALL and Ann SIMMONS is the last generation that give enough clues to say who he married, and that his first wife had died and he married again. We have not only the GRO Index but we also have Census Data that can be reviewed to work out who his wives were and what children they had.

The problem lies in working back from their his parents; William BOXALL and Ann SIMMONS were also not too difficult to work-out using Census data from 1841 - 1861 that tell us that William was born about 1774 in Kirdford, Sussex. His wife was Ann ? who was born in West Clandon, Surrey, about 1783. There was no marriage to find for them in Kirdford so next stop was West Clandon, Surrey. There we find a marriage for William BOXALL marrying an Ann SIMMONS in August 1804. From Census information we find the names of some of their children; and we check the transcripts of the parish registers to find any others that may have left home prior to 1841, this being the first useful Census in England.

So here we have William BOXALL born some time around 1774 in Kirdford, Sussex checking the transcripts of the Kirdford parish registers we find a William BOXALL baptized 12 Nov 1774 to William BOXALL and Elizabeth ?. After checking for other children it was then time to find out who Elizabeth was. At this stage things are fairly straight forward; there is a marriage between William BOXALL and Elizabeth MARSHALL on 1 June 1773 in Kirdford. They were not alive to be included in the 1841 census. All we have to work from are the transcribed parish registers. There are no other William and Elizabeth unions in Kirdford and at this point in time no other William and Elizabeth's producing children.

So what do we know about this William BOXALL that will help us move another generation back. First a review of the information we know about the family. Charles was a Carpenter and his father William was a carpenter. This quite often is an indicator that William's father may be a carpenter. Which would mean an apprenticeship so before William could marry Elizabeth he would have served an apprenticeship, therefore he probably would not have married at least before he was 21. This would put his birth date to at least 1752 or earlier. We have nothing that indicates what trade the various individuals had; there do not appear to be Wills for a William BOXALL that throw further light; all we have are the transcribed parish registers.

For this family I have remained looking in Kirdford for a suitable baptism other than a William baptized 1748 son of another William and Elizabeth. Using the Sussex Marriage Index we have a little information on a marriage that took place in September 1778 at Petworth, Sussex by License. The license tells us that William had only been in the parish of Petworth for three years, that he was a manservant and 31 years of age. This means that he was born about 1747.

We need a William BOXALL born at least prior to 1752 we have a William born 1748 in Kirdford, Sussex. Who is the most likely candidate for the William we are looking for but when I review my files I find that I have linked this William to the marriage that happened in Petworth. The trouble is there are two other William BOXALLs that fit the time line for this marriage. William BOXALL baptized 1746 in Lurgashall and William BOXALL baptized 1748 in Lurgashall. This is where we hit the proverbial brick-wall until another piece of information can be found.

If I am correct that the family have remained carpenters then we will need a directory of Kirdford during that time to show us if there were BOXALL carpenters living and if they have the name William. So I shall leave our William BOXALLs for another day and move on to the next challenge in my BOXALL One Name Study.