England Manorial Court Records Case Study (National Institute)

The Browns of Southborough
This example shows the value of manorial court records in sorting out the relationships in a family with a common surname, repetitious given names and a christening wanderlust. My Browns start in the area between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, Kent with Robert and Frances who had at least 10 children from 1762–1788 and they and their sons christened children in several of the surrounding churches. There were, of-course, many other Browns in the area as well! Three of Robert’s boys, Thomas (1768), Richard (1779) and William (1782), acquired land in Southborough and begat further Brown sons and grandsons. So far I have one Edward, one John, two George’s, three Robert’s, three Thomas’, four Richard’s, six James’ and seven William’s!

Even with a thorough survey of local parish registers, census returns and a clutch of memorial inscriptions they are difficult to firmly assign to families.

A study of the court book for the manor of Southborough revealed that:

From the above court records, which include both inheritance and sales of land, we can work out which sons died and which survived, as the parish registers do not differentiate between all the different Richard’s James' and William’s. Using manor court records together with the census and tithe maps and apportionments we know exactly where they lived. However I am still trying to work out which of the following relatives were amerced (fined) for encroachment on the wastes:


 * Robert Brown in 1820 for building a hogsty
 * Richard Brown in 1827 for building a hogpound
 * William Brown in 1827 for building a hogpound
 * George Brown in 1841 for leaving a faggot stack.

As a final stroke of serendipity, one of my umpteenth Dashwood cousins (on my mother’s side) actually lives on plot 2429 in Southborough, (albeit in a more modern dwelling), where my Browns (on my father’s side) lived in the early 1800s!

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Land and Property Records including Manorial Documents and Maps offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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