Marriages had taken place in Ash Parish Church for hundreds of years, but the first one to be recorded in a Parish Register at Ash was when Thomas Courtnesse and Rose Gunner were married 30 November 1549.
Some Sample Ash Parish Marriages
- Gilbard Burt alias (allias) Goring and Dorothie Goreing Widow (widdow) were married 1 November 1627 ‘Alias’ implied ‘formerly’ and was used to show a person who may have taken another last name ~ perhaps following an inheritance; it was also used to show a woman’s maiden name.
- The fact that a person was widowed was not always indicated in the Parish Register: Nicholas Hayward and Constance Innes were married 9 May 1583. We know that Constance was a widow as a record in the Cleygate Manorial Rolls refers to “Alice Ticknor Daughter of William Innes and Constance his then wife now the wife of Nicholas Hayward“
- Richard Bishop and Marie Deane were married 21 October 1638 – being licensed. Licences were quite unusual as most couples got married following the publication of banns
- 1639: no marriages took place in Ash that year
- George Cobbett and Joane Dare were married the last day of June 1644
- Robert Dare and Joane Cobbett were married 26 September 1645
- This is the marriage of George Cobbett, Ash Parish Clerk; a year later, George’s sister Joan married the brother of George’s wife
Last Marriages Recorded in Ash Parish Register Volume I
- 1650 – no marriages
- George Robinson and Sara Drapyer were married 27 May 1651
- John West and Marie Monger were married 4 June 1651
- John Michyner and Marie (name not given) were married 6 December 1652
- John Farmer and Mary Miles were married 25 September 1653
What Happened After September 1653?
Religious marriages were banned by Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate Government and marriages were performed by a Justice of the Peace. Ash Parish Register Volume I was retired to the church chest. Following the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, those non-church marriages were simply declared legal and things returned to the way they had always been.
The First Recorded Burials
- Jane Cockes buried 26 January 1549
- John Stevens buried 30 January 1549
- Thomsyn Hychcocke buried 31 January 1549 (she had been baptized 18 January 1549
- Margret Mylton buried 12 March 1549 (she had been baptized 7 January 1549)
- Margret Gorynge buried 12 July 1550
- William Gooddier buried 25 October 1550William Gunner buried 2 November 1550
- Note: Julian Calendar started the New Year on Lady Day (25th March) not 1 January so all these burials took place in what we would call 1550
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
- A child of one Richard the Leper was buried 20 March 1603
- 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.
Two burial records refer to women as ‘Good Wife‘:
- Good Wyfe Ockley buried 8 April 1609
- Good Wyfe Foster buried 20 May 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 was started.
Ash Parish Churchyard – no doubt many of the burials discussed here took place in what is now grassy space as seen in this photo. 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/