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 EUSTACE and MARY BARNARD (8)
JOHN EUSTACE married Mary Barnard in Haddenham in Buckinghamshire in 1747. He was then of Haddenham, and brought up his family there. This gives him a likely birth date around 1722.
There are two possible baptisms.
Baptisms. St Mary, Haddenham.
1722 Jul 21 John son of John and Francis Eustace
1722/3 Jan 7 John son of Benjamin and Martha Eustace.
John and Mary named two of their sons John (the first have presumably died)
The first of the 1722 baptisms would put John in a long line of farmers and butchers, before and after this generation, including their aptly-christened son Farmer Eustace.
Benjamin and Martha’s son John became a cordwainer (shoemaker), making it considerably less likely that his sons would become a farmers.[1]
His mother was Frances Cripps.
Both John’s father and grandfather were butchers, and also farming on land they owned. John was only 11 when his father died, too young to be inducted into the butchery business. At his burial, he is stated to be a farmer.
As the oldest surviving son, John appears to be his father’s principal heir. He would have been a comparably wealthy man.
The soil of Buckinghamshire lends itself much more to pasture than to agriculture, so stock rearing or dairy farming was the principal source of income for farmers.
MARY BARNARD. Mary was of Haddenham when she married in 1747. This makes her likely baptism the following:
Baptism. Haddenham
1724 Jan 1 Mary daughter of William and Rebecca Barnard.
Her mother was Rebecca Horton of Hartwell, near Aylesbury.
Mary was the youngest of eight children, including two sets of twins. But three of these had died before she was born.
We do not know her father’s occupation for certain, but when her brother George died in 1741, and again when her father died in 1752, the family were living in Grove Mill, Haddenham. Mary’s father may have been a miller.
Marriage. Stone.
1747 May 6 John Eustace and Mary Barnard. Both of Haddendon (sic). By licence.
Hartwell, where Mary’s mother came from, is now merged with the parish of Stone, 2 miles from Aylesbury. Mary may have been living with family there, so chose this as her wedding place.
They couple brought up their family back in Haddenham, 4 miles to the SW.
Haddenham is one of only three “wychert villages” in England. Wychert is a kind of cob made of white clay mixed with straw. It is built on a stone base and either thatched or topped with red clay tiles.
The couple had four children baptised here.
Baptisms. St Mary, Haddenham.
1748 May 1 Sophia
1749 Nov John
1753 Apr 29 Farmer
1757 Apr 11 John
We presume the first John died, though we do not have his burial.
The unusually named Farmer Eustace, did indeed become a farmer, as did his brother John.
John senior’s burial is probably the following.
Burial. St Mary, Haddenham.
1758 Sep 30 John Ewstace, Farmer.
There is another burial for John Eustace in 1768, but this one would explain why there are no baptisms after 1757.
He would have been 36.
Mary outlived him by more than 20 years.
Burial. St Mary, Haddenham.
1779 Dec 8 Mary Eustace widow.
[1] National Archives: D-HO/145
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