5
Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)
JOHN DENMAN and SARAH MURREL (10)
JOHN DENMAN. There are Denmans in the parish registers of Worth in Sussex from 1672 onwards, when William Denman married Hanna Garston. Since the registers go back to 1558, it would appear that the Denmans came to Worth from somewhere else. Unfortunately, we do not have the Protestation Return for Worth, which would have told us if there were any Denmans in Worth in 1641-2.
Our first record of John Denman is his marriage to Sarah Murrel in 1710. This was in the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne.
Since he married in 1710, we should expect a birth date around 1685. We have not found a plausible baptism within 10 miles of Worth. It was probably in a parish whose early records have been lost. The greatest number of Denmans near Worth in the early records are in the villages of Balcombe and Burstow.
Since John raised his family in Worth, it would seem that he had moved there before the wedding.
Worth lies just east of Crawley, in the very north of the county, close to the Surrey border. The parish covered a large area between Crawley and East Grinstead. It is now part of the new town of Crawley, which was then the neighbouring market town.
This is the Low Weald, a low-lying area of heavy clay soil. An iron industry flourished here in the 17th and 18th centuries.
From the occupation of his descendants, it is likely that John was an agricultural labourer. The clay soil was unsuitable for arable farming, so he was probably engaged in raising livestock. There is a breed of Sussex cattle. These are red in colour, and bred to be strong draught animals.
SARAH MURREL. Nor have we found Sarah’s baptism in Worth. There are a handful of
Murrels there before her marriage, but there is a gap of a century between Sarah’s wedding and the record before that. We have not found a plausible baptism elsewhere. She too was probably born in a parish whose records do not go back that far.
Since she was married in Worth, she is likely to have moved there before that.
Marriage. St Nicholas, Worth.
1710 Apr 23 John Denman and Sarah Murrel.
We have the baptism of five children.
Baptisms. St Nicholas, Worth.
1712 May 1 Sarah
1714 Oct 9 John
1717 Feb 23 Christopher
1719 Jan 8 Mary
1722 May 11 Philip
By now, the Hanoverian King George I was on the throne.
We have found no record of any of these children dying in infancy.
We have not found Sarah’s burial, but John’s is probably the following.
Burial. St Nicholas, Worth.
1753 Jan 27 John Denman
He was likely to have been in his late 60s.
NEXT GENERATION: 9. DENMAN
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