How reliable is Settlement info?

I have an ancestor, Richard Collins, born at the British Lying-in Hospital in Holborn in 1829. His father is also Richard Collins, a Merchants Clerk whose settlement is given as Sherborne in Dorset. I have searched extensively online but can find no trace of Richard Collins Snr in Sherborne. Any suggestions?

 

Having settlement in Sherborne doesn't necessarily mean that Richard Collins snr was born there. He could have inherited settlement from his father, or served an apprenticeship there.

I think this is the document on ancestry: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/sharing/...22c22746f6b656e5f76657273696f6e223a225632227d

 

Thanks, MaryL, you saved me a job! Incidentally Tim & MaryL I first saw that document at the National Archives over 20 years ago. I also found the birth of a stillborn daughter on 1 Nov 1827 with the same info.

 

At the risk of stating the obvious, when you search extensively online and find nothing, then the first thing to look into is - are the relevant records available online, and if so, where? If they are online, then the next thing to look into is whether the dates in question have survived.

Since Richard senior had the same settlement in both 1827 and 1829, there is a reasonable chance that he was actually resident in Sherborne at the time. Did he have other children baptised in Sherborne (or nearby)? The record gives his wife's age, so have you identified a marriage record or licence which might offer clues? What about wills? Collins is, unfortunately, quite a common surname, but nevertheless the archives catalogue or TNA Discovery might possibly offer up clues .

But to answer your original question, all documents have the potential to contain errors, but since births at the Lying-in Hospital required a recommendation, then it's likely that Richard Collins supplied the correct information about his settlement.

 

Well, yes Pauline, that is rather stating the obvious given that I have been researching my family history for about 40 years! However, I'm sure you meant well and perhaps the simplicity of my question made me seem like a beginner.
I was led to the British Lying In Hospital by the 1861 Census for Kingston upon Thames (where my grandfather was born) where Richard Thomas Collins helpfully stated that he was born St Giles, Middx. I visited the LMA a few times to try to find any other possible births but found none. His mother gave her birth place as Bristol. She first appeared in Kingston upon Thames in 1841 with a new husband (also called Richard but different surname) and in 1851, her son, named Richard Thomas Collins, also appeared for the first time. A niece from Bristol also featured who I extensively researched and discovered to be a daughter of Mary's sister whose maiden name was Thomas. This led me to a marriage on 1 Sep 1827 at Christchurch, Greyfriars between Richard Collins and Mary Thomas. There is also what appears to be a second baptism for Richard Thomas Collins on 12 Sep 1830 in Bristol whose father is Richard Collins abode Paddington, Middx, an Accountant (queries to another forum seems to suggest there were no formal qualifications for accountancy at the time so he may have just been a book keeper which could fit with 'Merchants clerk').
I have found nothing to suggest Richard Collins Snr had anything to do with Sherborne apart from this one instance. I have not found a will. I sent off for various death certificates to no avail but eventually found a burial in Bristol on 30 Nov 1836, age 46 which I believe to be the most likely one.
So, the reason I posed my original question was I wondered how far back in generational terms a settlement could go. I don't think Richard Collins Snr would have needed an apprenticeship to be a clerk but he could obviously read and write. As far as I am aware there were no other children born to Richard and Mary.
Thank you for your time.

 

There are a number of different ways of establishing settlement, so I don’t think you can really deduce anything about earlier generations from it. The same place of settlement might apply through several generations, but people didn’t necessarily keep the same place of settlement throughout their life, nor necessarily have the same one as any of their forebears.

That comes across as a little bit of a put down; my post was meant to be helpful but as I was only alerted to your post #4 as I was about to post mine, I wasn’t aware of your experience when writing most of it. And while it may be obvious to you and me, it isn’t necessarily obvious to everyone so I felt it was worth saying anyway for the benefit of other readers of the forum.

 

Sorry if it came across like that, Pauline. Maybe I should have just given all the other info then asked about settlements. Honestly don't know where to go with this line - any thoughts?

 

I would guess you may already have thought my thoughts and answered them, but here's a couple just in case:

I think there may be a small chance that your Richard Thomas Collins and the Richard Collins born and baptised at the lying-in hospital were not the same person. In theory at least, people in the Church of England should only be baptised once, and there is no indication that the baptism at the lying-in hospital was a private one, or that the Richard in Bristol was just being received into the church. The father of the Richard Thomas in Bristol was an accountant of Paddington whereas the father at the earlier baptism was a merchant's clerk of Queen's Square, which I think is Bloomsbury. Obviously these are very small differences - Richard Collins could have changed his job (or described it differently) and he could have moved. The age given at the Bristol baptism gives Richard Thomas born about March 1829, but that again is only a minor discrepancy. So there's every possibility that Richard and Richard Thomas were the same child, but just a small chance that they weren't. If Richard Thomas was born in London and then had his only baptism in Bristol a year or so later, there wouldn't be any record of his beginnings in London.

Secondly, the Richard Collins whose settlement was apparently Sherborne, Dorset may have gained settlement there by working for someone there for more than a year. If so, his place of settlement may show no indication of where he was born or where his family were from.

 

Yes, that's true but the baptism done at the Lying in Hospital was nonconformist and they may have wished to have another one in Bristol near Mary's family and to include the middle name Thomas, by which he was known throughout his life. Who knows?
I have also considered the Richard Collins in the criminal records and researched it discovering a Mary Collins (although slightly younger) was found not guilty of the same offence. Richard was sentenced to 7 years transportation but served the whole on the hulks, being pardoned in 1824. The conviction was at Gloucester assizes and his name was shown as Richard Lane, alias Collins. Intriguingly there is a Joshua Collins in Sherborne who married a Lane but I have been unable so far to bring this line to a conclusion.
Personally, I think they were all liars, Richard Thomas described his father as a gentleman on his marriage certificate which could have been to cover up a conviction. A cousin of mine also has tales to tell of the more recent Collins family and my own grandfather Collins was a bigamist amongst other things (I have his divorce papers from the NA and he was not a nice man!)
Any thoughts?

 

It was not uncommon for people to ‘upgrade’ occupations when marrying, and if the father Richard was eventually working for himself then some people would have considered him to be a gentleman. But I know what you mean about people covering things up and have plenty of examples in my own family.

It’s difficult with Collins being a relatively common surname, and since the father Richard you are looking for died, or otherwise disappeared before the census, tracking him down was never going to be easy. All you can do is what you have been doing, and keep gathering information. Has DNA given any useful clues?

 

No, the only ones on that line have stuttered to a halt well before my own research and some have complete guesses on their tree.
One other thing I wondered about is that when Mary turned up in Kingston upon Thames in 1841, she was married to Richard Grose who also came from Bristol. But I have never been able to find their marriage, so it makes me suspicious.

 

I couldn't find it either, though inevitably mine was only a brief search and a longer look might have made a difference. But the absence of a marriage may well be because one of the two was already married.

 

Yes or that Richard Grose is really Richard Lane/Collins hiding from his past! Why did they go to Kingston upon Thames, never found any earlier connection!

 

By this date, the move to Kingston upon Thames could simply have been to find better employment, but I agree that something seems to be not quite on the straight and narrow with this family. I wonder if someone with a criminal record might have been excluded from the lying-in hospital services, though, since more people wanted to give birth there than were able to, but I don't know for sure.

By the way, I think the lying-in hospital baptisms were classed as non-parochial rather than non-conformist. The register used was a printed C of E register, and the chaplains appear to be C of E. The minister who baptised Richard Collins described himself earlier in the register (image 6, page 72) as Chaplain of St George's Hospital so he would have been a C of E clergyman.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, Pauline though it's still strange that his abode was Paddington! Also, forgot to mention on the criminal side, although the arrest etc was Gloucester assizes, his abode was given as Mary le Bone! He was a ships carpenter, Richard Thomas was a carpenter too. Ancestry has a Bristol Poll book for 1812 that lists a Richard Collins alongside a William Collins, both shipwrights, could they be father and son or brothers? Is it really feasible that this family zipped between London and Bristol in the early 1800s?

 

I don't know about 'zipping' but it would have been feasible, and there would have been stagecoaches running between the two places. According to the Postal Museum website, in 1784 an experimental mail coach did the journey from Bristol to London in 16 hours, and I would guess it may have been a bit faster by the early 1800s - see https://www.postalmuseum.org/collections/mail-coaches/

 

Will look that up, thanks. Will be 'off grid' for a few days now as I'm moving tomorrow but will get back to you with any more thoughts soon.