England Marriage and Family Settlements, Charity and Trust Deeds (National Institute)

Marriage and Family Settlements
Amongst the deeds there may also be marriage settlements and family settlements, typically for gentry and substantial landowners, but sometimes for those of quite modest means. These should not be confused with parish Poor Law settlements.

Marriage Settlement
A marriage settlement was drawn up before, or sometimes shortly after, a marriage typically with a father transferring land, shares or money to a son, or to a daughter and her husband, to ensure that they had sufficient income. A groom could also make a settlement effectively tying up some of his property to ensure his wife’s continued comfort. The deed will give the names, occupations and places of residence of husband and wife and usually gives details of their parents as well. The named trustees would be family members or good friends of the families involved, and would hold the property, which is described, on behalf of the newlywed couple. Sometimes earlier generations are also named, particularly the couple’s parents’ own marriages with their parents and relatives.

Unett and Tanner (Making a Pedigree: An Introduction to Sources for Early Genealogy, 1997) describe in detail two such marriage settlements which are abstracted here.


 * ­ The first is dated 23 Aug 1723 involving:


 * ­ The second example concerns a yeoman with much less land in 1667 but also in Herefordshire.

A later example from my own family is given in full below.

Chart: Marriage Settlement 1782

Family Settlements
Family Settlements were usually drawn up once each generation as the eldest son came of age. The documents detail the family as it is at this time and list the property and money that each child could expect. There are often references to the preceding family settlement, and the deed could entail property within the family for the succeeding generations. Obviously very many names and relationships would be given in the documents, hence their usefulness to the genealogist. Alcock (Old Title Deeds, 2001) and Herber (Ancestral Trails, 2003) have further details on how these worked.

The bundles of deeds for an estate or family may contain all kinds of other documentation if the lawyers had been thorough in tracking down legal confirmation of heirs. These include parish register transcripts for christenings, marriages and burials, sworn statements by living witnesses stating relationships, and three- or four-generation family trees which had been drawn up at the time to explain the descent of property. It can be readily seen that deeds are high quality original sources as they were done to legal standards. They are more reliable than parish registers but can confirm them, and also provide substitutes for missing church records. Settlements are also particularly important in establishing migration of members of a family from one place to another, providing the all-important link between christening and marriage of an individual

Charity and Trust Deeds
Charity and trust deeds differed from family settlements because they were always in the hands of trustees and were virtually perpetual. When trustees died, became incapable or moved away then new ones were appointed by a double transaction: the survivors conveyed to a third party who then conveyed to the new, enlarged group of trustees (see examples below).

Chart: Schedule of Salisbury Methodist Deeds 1702-1853

Chart: Copy of 1742 Salisbury Methodist Deeds

The deeds of land which was transferred for charitable purposes, such as schools, burial grounds, parks, museums, working class dwellings and nonconformist chapels were enrolled on the Close Rolls from 1737. There are about 35,000 of them and are well indexed by place and are described more fully in TNA research guide L8. Copies can be found with papers of these institutions or bodies, such as those above. There is a surprising amount of family history detail in the actual copies, for example those for 1742 presented above.

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