In which we briefly look at the maternal ancestors of John Freeman, who married Ann Backler. We try not to get carried away in looking at the complicated and fascinating histories of these Northamptonshire folk, who are not actually relations of any sort to me, but just the ancestors of some quite distant Backler cousins. We will leave detailed research to those cousins.

In my previous post (6a), I looked at John Freeman’s paternal ancestors. In this post I briefly sketch his maternal side, since I know precious little about them other than their names.

William GARE and Dennis MARRIOTT: There is an abundance of folk named ‘Gare’ in this area of Northamptonshire. I am not sure who were William Gare’s antecedents. John Freeman’s mother was the interestingly-named Dennis GARE (1710-1782), the second daughter of that name born to William GARE (died 1733) and his wife Dennis MARRIOTT (1660/1 – 1746). Dennis Gare was the second youngest of eight children. Second-born Edward (1701-1711) was short-lived, as were fourth-born Dennis (1704-1708) and last-born Edward (1718-1718).

Third-born William Gare Jnr (1703 – ) married first Mary Marks in Flore, Northants, in 1731. Mary died at or near to the childbirth and death of their daughter Anne in 1732. William then married Mary Cobley in the nearby parish of Weston Favell in 1736, three years after the death of his father, and in 1738/9 yet another William Gare was born to this couple.

Nothing is known to this author of Thomas Gare (1706 – ), but John Gare (1708, Flore – 1779, Blisworth) married Mary Rushworth in Easton Neston, Northants, in 1735, they producing at least four children: (another) Dennis Gare (1737-1804 , married William Peach in Blisworth in 1763); Thomas Gare (1738-1738); John Gare (1745-1745); and John Gare (1748 – ?), for whom a marriage and un-sourced children feature on an Ancestry tree, but whose fate, and that of any further children in this family, I will leave to others.

Abraham MARRIOTT and Amy BILLING/E: I don’t have enough information to trace the GARE line any further back. The Marriotts are more obliging. After diligent scrolling through the parish registers of Weedon Bec – rather sadly, a favourite occupation of mine! – I at last found an unindexed marriage confirming details which featured on several Ancestry websites: that of Abraham Marrett [sic] and Amy Billing on 6 June 1645. (The surname shows many variants in the Weedon Bec registers, including Marrett, Marit, Marriott, and Marriet, among others). Scrolling forward in the parish registers, we find at least ten children born up to 1663, but we have no death date for either Abraham or Amy. Some trees show a death date for Abraham…but it is the wrong person!

The difficult thing with both Gare and Marriott names is the abundance of people with the same names. There are cousins, aunts and uncles, all named |John, or Thomas, Samuel, Richard, Anne . etc etc. The Weedon Bec parish register is helpful in sorting some of them out, as in the case of burials it tends to give relationships – wife or husband of…or child of…This helped in the Marriott case to stay with the one family.

Going back in time, we know again from parish registers that Amie [sic, mis-transcribed as Annie] Billing was baptised 22 April 1627, the daughter of Samuel BILLING and Mary. Abraham Marret was baptised 15 December 1622, son of William MARRET and his wife Joane. Both baptisms in Weedon Bec.

I have found these intertwined families in and around Weedon Bec, Flore, Brockhall, Bugbrooke, Everdon and many more, ro be fascinating. BUT it is time I moved on to the families of more direct concern to our Backler story. To be continued in my next post!