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)(1)
SAMUEL NEWMAN and ELIZABETH (11)
SAMUEL NEWMAN. From the dates of his children’s baptisms we would expect Samuel to have been born around 1607. There is a gap in the Stevenage baptisms around that time. Just before this, Richard and Thomas Newman were having children baptised. Samuel named one of his sons Thomas, so this may be his father.
The mother’s name is not given in these early registers.
We do not have a record of Samuel’s occupation. His son Thomas became a blacksmith, as did a number of other Newmans in Stevenage. Samuel may well have been one of them.
ELIZABETH. No wedding has been found for this couple. It probably happened in a nearby parish whose early registers are lost. We therefore do not know Elizabeth’s maiden name.
The couple called their second son Graham. This was an unusual Christian name at this time. It may have been Elizabeth’s surname, but we have not found a baptism for Elizabeth Graham.
The couple had six children baptised in the church of St Nicholas, Stevenage.
Baptisms. St Nicholas, Stevenage.
1633 May 12 Samuel
1635 Apr 19 Graham
1637 Oct 1 Thomas
1639 Aug 25 Elizabeth
1640/1 Feb 24 Anna
1642/3 Jan 2 Thomas Newman filius Samuelis et Elizabethae.
By now the Civil War had started between King Charles I and Parliament. It was caused by Charles’s autocratic style of ruling, and the heavy taxes he demanded to pay for foreign wars.
Most of Hertfordshire, including Stevenage, was Parliamentarian. But the heavy cost of maintaining the Roundhead army, and giving free quarter to troops passing through, led to resentment. The Newmans, like others, would have been relieved when the war was over.
After his capture, Charles I was led through Stevenage on his way to London, where he was executed in 1649.
The church of St Nicholas stands high above the town. During the war, its stained glass windows were smashed, and the frescoes on the walls covered with whitewash by Roundhead soldiers.
Elizabeth did not live to see the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 after the Commonwealth period.
Burial. Stevenage.
1658/9 Feb 27 Elizabeth Newman ye wife of Sammuell.
Samuel died in the reign of the restored King Charles II.
Burial. Stevenage.
1674/5 Jan 17 Samuel Newman senex (old man)
[1] Hertfordshire Genealogy: Places: Stevenage – St Nicholas
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