8. PETLEY-ROGERS

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Fay Sampson’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 30 generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from my own as (1)

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LEONARD PETLEY and SARAH ROGERS (8)

 

LEONARD PETLEY. The most likely baptism for Sarah Petley, who married John Spinner in Northbourne, Kent, in 1759, is found in Guston, five miles south of Northbourne.

Baptism. St Martin of Tours, Guston.
1734 July 7  Sarah daughter of Leonard and Mary Petley.

We have found no baptism for Leonard that fits his marriage in 1731. The name Leonard Petley occurs quite often in the parishes of Great Mongeham and East Langdon between Deal and Dover. Leonard was said to be of East Langdon at his marriage. We only have baptisms in East Langdon from the 1770s onwards, so he may well have been born there.

We have found no evidence of his occupation. Another Leonard Petley in Great Mongeham was a carpenter.

 Leonard married Sarah Rogers in 1731. The wedding took place in Canterbury, but both bride and groom came from parishes between Deal and Dover. They may have gone there to get their marriage licence and married in the same town.

Marriage. St George, Canterbury.
1731 Nov 18  Leonard Petley of East Langdon, ba, and Sarah Rogers of St Margaret Atcliffe, spinster, married by licence.

The licence contains no further information, and does not tell us the ages of the parties.

Their marriage is followed by six baptisms in the parish of Guston.

Baptisms. St Martin of Tours, Guston.
1732 Apr 27 Mary daughter of Leonard and Mary Petley
1734 July 7  Sarah daughter of Leonard and Mary Petley.
1737  Jul 24  Elizabeth daughter of Leonard and Sarah Petley
1739 June 24  Leonard  son of Leonard and Sarah Petley
1741 Oct 18  John son of Leonard and Sarah Petley
1743 Mar 13  Susan daughter of Leonard and Sarah Petley

We have found no marriage of Leonard and Mary, nor is there a burial for Mary Petley between 1734 and 1737. There is also a long gap between the marriage of Leonard and Sarah in 1731 and the first baptism that names Sarah as the mother in 1737.

The most plausible explanation would be that the clergyman making the first two records mistakenly thought that Leonard’s wife was named Mary. If this is so, the dates would fall into place. We therefore believe that the mother of all six children was Sarah Rogers.

 

SARAH ROGERS. Sarah was of St Margaret at Cliffe when she married in 1731. Her age at her burial gives her a birth date around 1700. The only plausible baptism in this area is the following:

Baptism. St Margaret at Cliffe.
1701 Dec 6  Sarah daughter of Tho. Rogers.

Sarah’s baptismal record does not name her mother, but those of her siblings identify her as Sarah. From the marriage register, we find that she was Sarah Taylor.

 She was the middle of three known children. The ink of the St Margaret’s register is badly faded, so there may have been other siblings.

In 1720 we have the following entry:

Burial. St Margaret at Cliffe.
1719/20 Mar 25  The son of Sarah Rogers an infant.

The likelihood is that the child died at birth.

Sarah would have been18 years old.

 

Sarah and Leonard brought up their family, not in Leonard’s parish of East Langdon, nor in Sarah’s parish of St Margaret at Cliffe, but in Guston. This village lies just north of Dover.

Halsted, writing of Guston in 1800, says: [1]

“This small parish is unfrequented, and but little known. It lies, as well as those last-described, among the continued high hills and deep valleys which extend over the whole of this country, which is alike, much of it downy, very open and uninclosed, and the land very chalky and poor, great part of it being covered with furze and heath. The village, with the church, is situated in the northern part of it. There is nothing worth further notice in it.”

At some point after the births of their children, Leonard and Sarah moved back to East Langdon, where Leonard was living at the time of their marriage. There are two burials there.

Burials. East Langdon.
1779 Jan 27  Sarah Petley aged 79.
1809 Dec 11  Leonard Petley. His age at death is not given in the transcript.

 

[1] The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9. Originally published by W Bristow, Canterbury, 1800. Edward Hasted, ‘Parishes: Guston’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9( Canterbury, 1800), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp405-409

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