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)
RICHARD SAMPSON. The names John and Richard alternate down the generations in this Sampson line. This Richard was born in 1690, just after the accession of William and Mary. A year earlier, Mary’s father, James II, had fled the country when her husband, William of Orange, landed in Torbay.
Richard was born in the small North Devon town of Winkleigh. He was the son of the day-labourer John Sampson and Grace Paddon.
Baptism. All Saints, Winkleigh. (DCRS transcript)
1690 20 Oct. Richard s of John Sampson
Without secure employment for his father, Richard must have grown up on the brink of poverty. One brother had died before Richard was born, and another died a month after Richard’s birth. He was the fourth of five surviving children.
SUSANNA BROOK was also born in Winkleigh. She was the fourth of the sixth children of Robert Brooke and Susanna Gerdin. She was baptised at All Saints, Winkleigh, on 11 March 1684(5).
At his marriage in 1706, her brother Robert, the eldest son, was a day-labourer, so it is quite probable that this was her father’s occupation too. She would have grown up with a background very like Richard’s.
The pair were married in All Saints, Winkleigh in 1714, when Richard was 24 and Susanna 29. They are the first Sampsons in a register beginning from 1709, which was transcribed in 1730.
This Book was transcribed in the months of December and January. Ano Dom 1730
The Time will come when all things here must Flie
And Those that Live on Earth must Shortly Die.
Scriptum per me. Tho: Mayne 1731
Lord Teach me to Number my days
that I may apply my Heart with Wisdom.
This register records the marriage on 2 June 1714 of Richard Sampson to Susanna Brook.
A daughter was born seven months later, a not uncommon happening in those days.
Baptisms. All Saints, Winkleigh.
1714(5) Sampson, Susanna d of Richard 19 Jan
Two more children followed.
d.1717 Sampson, John s of Richard 22 Aprill
1719 Sampson, Grace d of Richard 12 May
The family was small, but all seem to have survived infancy.
Richard and Susanna’s deaths have not been found yet.
NEXT GENERATION: 8. SAMPSON
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 10. SAMPSON-PADDON