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)
JOSEPH HARDY and ELIZABETH DEXTER (10)
JOSEPH HARDY. When Sarah Hardy married John Wilson at Crowland Abbey in 1823, she came from a long line of farmers, in and around the Lincolnshire parish of Horbling. This is halfway between Grantham and Boston, on the edge of the Fens.
The earliest we have traced is Joseph Hardy, who was married in Threekingham, close to Horbling, in 1682.
There is a family tree that says he is the son of John Hardy, but we have not seen the evidence for this.[1] We have not found his baptism, so we do not know what parish he was born in.
He called his elder son John.
In the 1641 Protestation Return for Horbling we find John Hardie, and in a column headed “Bridgend” we find Robert Hardie. These are likely to be related to Joseph, but it is impossible to say in what way. There was a John Hardy who married Elizabeth Baxter in Horbling in 1619 and is probably the John Hardy who died in 1660. He could be Joseph’s grandfather.
Less is known about Robert Hardy.
Bridgend is a hamlet a mile east of Horbling. It was once the site of a Gilbertine priory.
It got its name from being at the start of a causeway across the fens from Horbling to Donington.
The Horbling registers go back to 1653. Before that, we have only occasional Bishops Transcripts. Joseph’s marriage date of 1682 would normally lead us to expect a birth around 1657. But this was Elizabeth’s second marriage, and we believe her to have been born in 1648, so Joseph may have been older than average.
Dean Dudley, writing his own family history, says: “I took pains to visit Horbling. in Lincolnshire, where Gov. Bradstreet’s father preached some time, but there was no account of him in the parish register. The parish minister told me that Puritans did not often record their baptisms in the church registers of England.”[2]
Joseph’s may be one of those missing baptisms.
We meet him first in 1682 at his marriage to Elizabeth Peacock.
ELIZABETH DEXTER. When Elizabeth married Joseph she was a widow. This leads us to the following marriage entry.
Marriage and Banns. St Andrew, Folkingham,
1673 Nov 3 Francis Peacock and Elizabeth Dexter, both of this parish.
Folkingham is a small town 2 miles SW of Horbling.
From this we would expect a birth date around 1648 and we find the following:
Baptism. St Andrew, Rippingale.
1648 Apr 16 Elizabeth daughter of John Dexter and Elizabeth his wife.
Rippingale is a village 4 miles south of Folkingham.
We do not know her mother’s maiden name.
We know of only one sibling, an older sister, also Elizabeth, who died at less than a month old in 1641. It is possible that there were other children on pages of the register where the ink is too faded to read, or which were never recorded.
Elizabeth, and possibly Joseph, was born towards the end of the Civil War. Lincolnshire lay between the Royalist and Parliamentarian strongholds, and there There were numerous minor battles, sieges and skirmishes, in which Cromwell’s forces were usually successful.
Elizabeth and Joseph spent their childhood under the Republican Commonwealth of the 1650s, but Charles II had taken back his father’s crown by the time they were married.
Elizabeth was 25 when the banns were read for her to marry Francis Peacock.
There is just one problem with this. The register entry is followed by a note “published but not married”, meaning that the banns had been read in church but no wedding had followed. There is further note beside this, but the edge of the page is missing and we have not been able to decipher the fragments that remain, other than the date 18 November. This may be the date they eventually married, but there is no certainty about this.
We might have wondered whether Francis had died before the wedding could take place, but we have not found a burial for him in 1673 or 1674, nor have we found a later marriage for them, unless the partial note refers to it.
We do, however, have the following:
Baptisms. St Andrew, Folkingham.
1677 Apr 16 Elizabeth daughter of Francis Peacock and Elizabeth his wife of Lafton.
“Lafton” is Laughton, a tiny village just south of Folkingham.
1681 Dec 5 Francis son of Francis and Elizabeth Peacock.
Is their wedding on a page of the early register where the ink has become faded? Did the missing note say belatedly that they had married? Or were they living as husband and wife without undergoing a formal ceremony?
Folkingham stands on a hilltop, commanding extensive prospects over the Fens. These were less well drained than they are today, with large areas of standing water.
We have not found a burial for Francis senior, but Elizabeth was a widow when she married Joseph Hardy in 1683.
Marriage. Threekingham.
1682/3 Feb 12 Joseph Hardy and Elizabeth Peacock widd.
Threekingham is a village on the Grantham to Boston road, 2 miles north of Folkingham. Elizabeth was presumably living in there at the time.
They raised their family in Horbling, so it is likely that this is Joseph’s parish. There are Hardys in the Horbling register from the 1500s.
Five children were baptised at St Andrew’s.
Baptisms. Horbling.
1683 Nov 4 Elizabeth
1685 Jul 12 Ann
1687 Dec 14 John
1691 Apr 14 Mary
1693 Dec 26 Joseph
By the time their two youngest children were born, James II had retreated to France and his daughter Mary II ruled jointly with her Dutch husband William III.
Horbling stands on the edge of the Fens, 2 miles NE of Folkingham.
It was historically a poor parish. In the time of Elizabeth I, the rating for the first ever subsidy produced a nil return for Horbling. No one had a high enough income to pay tax.
One of its sources of income was stone which was quarried for rough buildings and road-making.
It seems very likely that Joseph was a farmer.
The church has an octagonal font dating from the Middle Ages. It bears shields depicting the instruments of Christ’s passion. It is here that the Hardy children were baptised.
Both Joseph and Elizabeth lived into the 18th century and the reign of Queen Anne.
Burials. Horbling.
1710 Dec 25 Elizabeth wife of Joseph Hardy.
She was 62.
There are two possible burials for Joseph.
1712 Jun 20 Joseph Hardy
1714 Mar 15 Joseph Hardy.
[1] https://www.geni.com/people/Joseph-Hardy/6000000090194091822
[2] Dudley, Dean, History of the Dudley Family, Number 1. Wakefield , Mass. 1886
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