8. HOGBEN-MARIAMS

Baker  Tree

MICHAEL HOGBEN and ELIZABETH MARIAMS (8)

 

MICHAEL HOGBEN. We should expect birth date for Michael around 1722. There is a promising one in Staple, six miles from Monkton where Michael married and brought up his children.

 Baptism. St James, Staple.
1720 Oct 23  Michael son of Michael and Sarah Hogbin.

Both the names Michael and Sarah occur among Michael and Elizabeth’s children. This parentage is also supported by the burial of  an older Michael Hogbin in Monkton, where Michael and Elizabeth had set up their home.

If this is correct, his mother was Sarah Ansell, who had previously been married to John Ambrose. Michael had an older half-sister from this marriage.

The Hogbens were not an established Staple family. The only instances of the name in the 18^th century are the baptisms of Michael and his sister Ann. But there are very many of them in nearby Wingham, where Michael’s younger sisters were baptised.

There were baptisms for other siblings in Preston next Wingham in 1717 and in Wingham in 1725.

This was clearly a mobile family.

There is one note of caution about this identification. Michael named his eldest son William. He only used the name Michael for his fourth son. Men usually gave their father’s name to their first, or at least second, son. Michael may be the son of a William Hogben nearer to Margate, whose baptism, like Elizabeth’s is in a register which has not survived or has not been digitised.

 

ELIZABETH MARIAMS. The Findmypast marriage index has the bride’s name as “Elizabeth Merriams (shown as Mariams)”. In fact the latter version is more like what we see in the registers of Birchington where they appear in some numbers, and where Michael and Elizabeth’s first child was baptised.

The surname is predominantly found in Birchington, but only from 1730, though the registers go back long before that. We should expect Elizabeth to have been born around 1722. Her baptism has not been found elsewhere. The fact that her first child was baptised there suggests that her family may have moved to Birchington before that.

Birchington is a seaside village close to Margate on the NW tip of Kent, in the Isle of Thanet. It is bounded by high chalk cliffs. The church and village stand on high ground, sheltered by elm trees. As well as the view out to sea, it is possible to see Canterbury Cathedral. Nearer the sea is the area known as Gorend, where the ancient church was buried in a cliff fall.

Birchington is three miles from Monkton, where Elizabeth and Michael married and brought up their children. Part of it lies within the manor of Monkton. The church at Birchington, rebuilt on higher ground, was a chapelry of the mother church of Monkton.

 

Marriage. St Mary Magdalene, Monkton.
1747 Mar 2 Michael Hogben and Elizabeth Merriams (shown as Mariams)

Both appear to be of that parish.

Elizabeth was already pregnant when the wedding took place. Her first child was baptised in Birchington, which we believe to be her previous home.

Mary was baptised there on 18 Oct 1747.

First children were often baptised in the mother’s parish.

 

In 1750 there is a burial in Monkton of Michael Hogbin. Clearly this is not Elizabeth’s husband, since the baptisms continue. It seems likely that this is Michael junior’s father, who has come to live with them since his wife died. There are burials for Sarah Hogbin in Wingham, where some of Michael junior’s siblings were baptised, in 1740 and 1741.

 

Six more children followed, all of them baptised in Monkton.
Baptisms. St Mary Magdalene, Monkton.
1751 Jun  2  Elizabeth
1752 Mar 4  William
1757 Jan 14  Sarah. Sarah was buried on Feb 20.
1760 Apr 11  Thos and John. John was buried on Apr 27. Twins were often born early, and in those days found it difficult to survive.
1763 Nov 20  Michael

Monkton is an inland parish three miles from Birchington. It stands on the SW edge of the Isle of Thanet, by the Wantsum River, that once formed a significant boundary between Thanet and the rest of Kent, before it became silted up.

Four years after the birth of her youngest child, Elizabeth died.
Burial. St Mary Magdalene, Monkton.
1767 Oct 9  Elizabeth, wife of Michael Hogben
She was probably still in her forties.

Clearly, Michael was still alive in 1767. We have not found his burial, in Monkton or elsewhere.

 

[1] https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/VisRec/M/MON/MONKTON_THANET_-_SDK059.JPG