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)
.THOMAS HEARSEY and OLIVE PEIRCE (10)
THOMAS HEARSEY. We have traced Alan March’s Hersey ancestry back to Thomas Hearsey of Nutfield, who was married in 1686.
Thanks to his marriage licence, we know more about him than is available in the marriage register. We know that he was 22 at the time, giving him a birth date of 1663-4. The baptism of his son John is the first instance of the Hersey surname, or its deviants, in the Nutfield register, so Thomas came from somewhere else.
The greatest instance of the surname before this is in the village of Horne, to the south, but Thomas’s baptism has not been found there.
It may be that his baptism is in a parish near Nutfield, whose registers do not go back that far, or have become illegible.
On the other hand, his birth date matches the following baptism in the village of Shere, between Guilford and Dorking.
Baptism. St James, Shere.
1663 Feb Tho Herssee the son of Tho Herssee
Shere is 15 miles west of Nutfield, so we should approach this result with caution.
On the positive side, there is no record of this Thomas dying young, marrying someone else, or raising a family in Shere. He seems to have moved away from Shere. So this could be the Thomas Hearsey who arrived in Nutfield from somewhere else.
The Herseys of Shere were a labouring family. The Thomas who brought up his family in Nutfield was a husbandman.
OLIVE PEIRCE. Olive was of Nutfield when she married, and the age given on her marriage licence is 24. This should mean she was born in 1661-2. Even allowing some leeway on her age, no baptism for her has been found in a wide area around Nutfield.
Nutfield is village some 3 miles east of Reigate in Surrey. The village and church stand on a hill, where the Bletchingley to Reigate road follows the ancient ridgeway.
Nutfield was essentially a farming community, although small amounts of fuller’s earth were also dug. Some farmers had a secondary occupation, particularly in weaving and dyeing.
Their parents had lived through tumultuous times, with the Civil War of the 1640s, the execution of Charles I, and the Republican Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. But by the time Thomas and Olive were born, the Stuart monarchy had been restored under Charles I.
Thomas and Olive were married by licence.
Marriage Licence. St George the Martyr, Southwark.
1686 Dec 22 Thomas Hearsey of Nutfield, husbandman, bachelor, 22, and Olive Peirce of Nutfield, spinster, 24, at St George the Martyr, Southwark.
It is not clear why they were married in Southwark, when both were from Nutfield. Perhaps one of them, probably Olive, was working there.
They brought up their family in Nutfield.
Baptisms. Ss Peter and Paul, Nutfield.
1687 Jul 4 John. John was buried two days later.
They named their next son John as well.
1689 Apr 21 John
1691 Apr 4 William
1692 Jan 28 Elizabeth
1698 Jan 26 Thomas
1700 Nov 7 James
1702 Feb 28 Matthew
1708 Aug 19 Richard
Elizabeth lived to the age of 10. She was buried on 17 Nov 1712.
In 1714, they saw the end of the Stuart monarchy with the death of Queen Anne, and the accession of the Hanoverian George I.
From the age given in his marriage licence, Thomas senior would have been about 61 when he died.
Burial. Ss Peter and Paul, Nutfield.
1724 Sep 2 Thomas Hersey
There is no burial that names Olive. Hers may be the following.
1747 Nov 17 Widow Hersey
Or this could be the widow of one of their sons.
If it is Olive, this would make her the advanced age of 86.
NEXT GENERATION: 9. HERSEY
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