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IN SEARCH OF JAMES BOURNE OF WYRESDALE
A simple task one would think especially as there was already a pedigree on which a James Bourne of Wyresdale was listed, will dated 1817. My James Bourne’s will was also dated 1817. I was disappointed not to find his burial records in St Michael’s Church Cockerham, where his son and grandson had been buried. Tantislisingly the records indicated that his father and grandfather were probably buried there. The two wills were obtained from the Lancashire Record Office and a careful examination showed little evidence of a link between the two families.
Still convinced that there was in fact a link further back in the pedigree, but unable to find my James Bourne’s birth, marriage or burial in the parish registers, it was then that I started to ask myself why there were so few Bourne baptisms and marriages recorded for example in the Garstang, Lancashire Parish Registers compared with burials during the early eighteenth Century? What was the reason for this and what other sources could be used to find births, marriages and burials for this period?
This article is an attempt to put the above observation into a wider perspective. Did what was happening in Lancashire during this period affect the neighbourhood in general or just the Bourne/Burne family?
It is often assumed by researchers that because one member of a family is found to belong to a certain religion then the rest will follow. Most of the surviving published records for the Bourne’s of Wyresdale are those that have been extracted from Anglican registers. Omissions that I have searched for over the years suggest that there was another branch that, for a period of time at least, either moved away from Cockerham or broke away from the established church and consequently became left out of the pedigree because they were more difficult to trace.
What makes me think that my ancestor James Bourne should be linked to the pedigree is that he had inherited a substantial amount of land from somewhere. I have a copy of the lease to his family home Wrampools plus 137 acres in Cockerham granted seventh year of George II (1767) by Francis Charteris whose father Col. Francis Charteris, of infamous memory, was known locally as the “wicked Lord”. He erected a sash-windowed mansion in front of the ancient keep on the left hand side of Hornby castle.
The first possibility is that there was a split in the family which started when four members of the Bourne family refused to take the great Protestation of 1641, this was recorded in the History of Garstang, Chetham Society 1878. They were Robert Bourne, John Bourne, Nicholas Burne and Thomas Burne and the refusal indicates that they may well have been Catholics. Considering the political climate of the day they may have been ostracized by other members of the family (some of whom may also have been suppressed Catholics) and the protestant church either because of fear or prejudice. As a result vital information about them is not available to be included in the pedigree. The Civil War was a time of anarchy that had a serious effect on registers. The power of the Bishops lapsed and in 1645 the Book of Common Prayer was banned, effectively undermining authority in the church. After the restoration a Parish Registrar was elected and a law was passed to legalise all marriages that had taken place during the Commonwealth Gap 1642 – 1662. As a consequence lots of baptisms were recorded in the 1660s.
After the restoration not all dissenters returned to the established church and those that did found themselves subjected to laws and taxes relating to births, marriages and burials. Those for births and marriages ...... cont'd
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