The First Recorded Burials
- Jane Cockes buried 26 January 1549/50 (remember that lower case ‘c’ looked like ‘r’
- John Stevens buried 30 January 1549/50
- Thomsyn Hychcocke buried 31 January 1549/50 (she had been baptized 18 January 1549/50
- Margret Mylton buried 12 March 1549/50 (she had been baptized 7 January 1549/50)
- Margret Gorynge buried 12 July 1550
- William Gooddier buried 25 October 1550
- William Gunner buried 2 November 1550
- Note: Julian Calendar started the New Year on Lady Day (25th March) not 1 January
- Also: these are copied records written up in 1592 and contain scant information
Here we have a 1563 record from the copied section that could tell us so much more:
- Christian Stevens buried 10 October 1563
- (Annis There buried 28 December 1563)
- Margret Stevens buried 29 December 1563
- Thomas Stevens buried 30 December 1563
- 3 Stevens Family burials in a short space of time
August 1551 was the Deadliest Month
- Six burials in one month amount to the highest monthly total in the entire register and note 3 members of the same family:
- Ales Bartlmew was buried 3 August 1551
- Richard Steele was buried 7 August 1551
- Margret Pullyn was buried 7 August 1551
- William Pullyn was buried 8 August 1551
- Elizabeth Pullyn was buried 7 August 1551
- John Munger was buried 14 August 1551
Once we get to burials recorded as they took place after 1592, more information was sometimes provided:
- Ellis Tomline of Aulton (Alton) was buried in Ash church yard 20 March 1603/4
- A child of one Richard the Leper was buried 20 March 1603/4
- Marie Stephens widow (Widdow) buried 30 April 1641
- Alice Monger widow buried 7 May 1641
- Thomas Stephens buried 8 May 1641
- John Michynor of Worplesdon buried 18 May 1641
- Dorothie the wife of George Bicknall of Worplesdon buried 7 September 1641
- John Remnant buried 22 September 1641
- Thomas Symonds, son of Thomas Symonds buried 20 September 1641 (out of order)
- We probably can assume when a burial record (after 1592) did not signify “son of or daughter of” that the person was an adult – such as John Remnant in this image
Two burial records refer to women as ‘Good Wife‘ (both images are of poor quality):
- Good Wyfe Ockley (remember c looks like r) buried 8 April 1609
- Good Wyfe Foster buried 20 May 1609 – note the counting marks evident in this image
- The burial record after Good Wife Foster is rendered in Ancestry.com as ‘Lolysse Musycore’ but a knowledge of Secretary Hand reveals this as Lettysse Musgrove – note how every ‘e’ looks like ‘o’ – she was the wife of William Musgrove and was buried 16 August 1609
The Last Burial Records in the first Ash Parish Register
- Dating and missing records are issues here as the effects of The Commonwealth start to show up. To have only one burial in the parish of Ash in 1652 is highly unlikely.
- John Monger the Younger buried 28 April 1652
- George Boylet the son of George Boylet buried May 3 1653
- Mr. George Clifton buried May 211653;
- Unnamed son of Thomas Snelling buried May 25 1653;
- Mr. Thomas Cooke, gent buried June 8 1653;
- Henrie Stephens the son of Henrie Stephens buried 3 July 1653
- Joan the daughter of Thomas Chandler buried 21 August 1653;
- Susan the wife of Henrie Bayley buried 12 September 1653;
- (Blank) wife of William West buried 21 September 1653;
- William Shorter buried 18 October 1653;
- Richard Strudick buried 16 February 1653/4.
What Happened Next?
In October 1653, an Act of Parliament was passed during Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth essentially secularizing parish affairs and instructing the parish to keep a true account of all births (not baptisms), marriages and deaths in a ‘Book of good Vellum and Parchment’. An able and honest person was to be made Parish Register (not Registrar as would be said today) and put in charge of the book. Ash Parish retired the first Register to the church chest and a new one started with the burial of John Michener on 18 December 1653. Note: Richard Struddicke buried 9 February 1653/4 – – almost certainly the same man as entered at the end of Volume I with a slightly different date.
Ash Parish Churchyard – no doubt many of the burials discussed here took place in what is now grassy space. Headstones would have been most unusual for anyone other than the gentry or prosperous yeoman.
Select Sources
- Surrey History Centre; Woking, Surrey, England; Surrey Church of England Parish Registers; Reference: AS/1/1
- Ash Parish Churchyard Photo at https://www.findagrave.com/