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As written before the update
of July 2006:
I have tried the following routes to take the
line back before the Francis shown in the chart, but so far have met
only with dead ends:
- There are no Barrington or Berrington
inscriptions in or around the parish church at Seal. (Source
"The monumental inscriptions at Seal" from Margaret
Stevens’ Past Generations of Seal and Kempsing from the
Memorials of the Churches.) I was really surprised to draw such a
complete blank, particularly as there are inscriptions for
neighbours whose lands are mentioned in Francis Berrington's
will.
- I commissioned a search of the land archives
from the Centre for Kentish Studies, but contemporary ones were no
longer in existence.
- Hasted's History of Kent, a more
or less contemporary account, makes no mention of property owned
by Barringtons or Berrington's either in Seal or anywhere else.
Again, I was rather surprised, as Seal doesn’t appear to be a
large place. Perhaps Hasted used only the available records
without flagging up the possible significance of the missing
records.
- I had high hopes that the National Archives
at Kew might hold something useful in their records of changes of
name. However, such records turned out not to go back sufficiently
far.
- I commissioned a search for the marriage of
Francis and Rose from the Centre for Kentish Studies but they drew
a blank from their indexes of parish records. They did recommend a
privately held set of indexes which also drew a blank on the
marriage, although it did yield additional information on the
children of Francis and Rose.
- Francis Barrington named his first son French
- a strange name I feel. It could have been given for any number
of reasons. Perhaps French was the surname of his wife Rose and
there were family reasons for wanting to continue it; perhaps
something significant in the family had happened in France;
perhaps French was a given name of a father or grandfather. There
may be some clues here but nothing convincingly confirms any of
these possibilities from the sources currently available.
Incidentally the Irish French
Barrington must be irrelevant here because he lived a century
later and was clearly named after his mother whose maiden name was
French. [Once the documents described in the Update arrived, the
reason for the name was clearly to honour 'our' French's maternal
grandmother, born Ann French.]
- I was thrilled to find from a book of
pedigrees that one for Barrington appeared in the 1667 visitation
of Kent. Having got hold of it, though, it did not help with the
ancestry of Francis. It showed an Edward Barrington at Maydstone
(Maidstone) in Kent. His tree linked back through his father, John
Barrington of Aylesford, Kent and Lincolns Inn to his grandfather,
also John Barrington of Baddow in Essex - ie to the Essex
Barringtons. Edward could have been Francis' father, but I can
find nothing to confirm this. According
to Tim Powys-Lybbe's
website, John Barrington of
Baddow is rather a mystery. The families of the Barringtons of the
Hatfield Broadoak estate in Essex seem to have been rather small
in the 16th century and there is no family record of a John born
at that time who is not otherwise accounted for. The 'Tofts'
property was in Baddow in the 17th century when a younger
Barrington son held it. The earlier 1619
visitation of Kent made no mention any Barringtons.
- The 1667 visitation of Kent shows that the
candidate for Francis' father, Edward Barrington, had a wife born Anne
Peirson or Anne Pearson. According to the IGI, the couple married on
28 December 1658 at St Clement Danes, Westminster, London. Edward's
parents were John Barrington and wife, born Jane Haggett of Barking.
That John was of Aylesford in Kent and Lincolns Inn, so presumably he
was a lawyer. His father was another John Barrington, this time of
Baddow in Essex. Working backwards John the older would have been born
about 1580, but an estimate over two generations can only be very
approximate.
With no more sources to try, the best way forward now seems to be to link in with
the research of others. Hopefully someone with information to share
may get in touch through this website.
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