This week I followed the trail of ancestors backwards in time from Thomas Wallbridge and his wife Sarah Shepherd. I will only be writing up profiles to their parent's generation, but I like to follow the trail as far back as I can without making too may leaps of faith and deduction.
Sarah's family proved difficult to follow, mainly because there are some missing records. I was unable to locate any record of Sarah's baptism, nor her parent's marriage. There is a Sarah Ann Shepherd baptised in Wareham, but she is too young by about 7 years to be our Sarah - she would have been only 14 when Sarah married Luke Wallbridge. There were also a lot of Shepherds in Wareham at the time, possibly siblings and cousins – the same names keep cropping up in different families!
Luke's heritage proved to be more fruitful, and I have yet to reach the end of some threads. There are also some juicy bits in Luke's family!
Luke's mother, Hannah Bearns (or Barnes) Fancy was born out of wedlock! Hanna's mother, Susanna (or Susan) Fancy and the father of the child, Daniel Barnes (hence Hannah's middle name), were taken to court by the Churchwardens of Bere Regis and told to pay for the care of the child.
Susan was herself born out of wedlock, and had probably done it tough all her life. A few years after Hannah was born, she married George Woodrow, an older man who had been recently lost his wife. Three more children followed, but the very day that the last child was baptised, George died and Susan was once again a single mother. How she got by we don't know, but in the early 1800s, Susan Woodrow (Hanna’s mother) was employed as a gardener by the Turners Puddle Vicar, Rev William Ettrick.
Things did not go well! After a series of minor misfortunes befell Ettrick, he became obsessed with the idea that Susan was a witch and the source of all his petty misfortunes. He dismissed her from his employ and continued to blame Susan for things that occurred even a year later.
Some people who have read Ettrick’s eccentric diaries concluded that Susan was probably not a good gardener, but that was all. If she was a witch, she did not cast a very good spell on Ettrick! He lived to father 10 children and died at the ripe old age of 90.
Susan herself lived to the age of 80 and died in 1839.
Read the full story as written by Natalie who is also one of Susan's descendants: My Ancestors’ Secrets: A Dorset Witch.
In case you were wondering, there is a solid chain of evidence leading from Madeline Geary Henderson all the way back to Susan Woodrow nee Fancy. Each step has multiple threads of evidence - no guesses in this one!
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