willis family history

[djl]

Hi, I'm looking at my wife's mother's family and in particular the Willis' of Paul and Mousehole. I have been able to track back, from the information the family held, which went as far as Arthur Willis (b 1824 Mousehole), through three generations back to William Willis (b Paul 1731). I have been able to verify and cross reference William using a record of his marriage to Margaret Vingoe at Paul on 28th February 1753 and the Vingoe family tree.

Unfortunately the marriage details did not include any information re parents/witnesses. I have two potential candidates for William's parents:-

1) Peter Willis (b @1680) who married Philipa Pentreath at Paul on 6th November 1703, or


2)John Willis (b 1695 in Paul) who married Jane Keigwin (b 1697 in Paul). Bizarrely I also have a record that suggests he was married to Philipa Pentreath!

Can anyone help me clear this block in my research - I am inclined to believe it is the latter (i sort of wish it was as it may take the Keigwin line back to Jenkyn Keigwin, who according to a History of Mousehole was killed by a cannonball while defending the Keigwin Arms during the Spanish raid in 1595).  

[zibetha]

Greetings and welcome to the board.

I wish I could be of more assistance, but I know just a bit about this family from my interest in the Blewetts in the Paul/Newlyn area. DNA points to a connection. I have your option 2) for William's parents but can't say so definitely. It looks like William and Margaret covered their own names and those of their parents when it came to naming their children, except I don't know the source of the name Arthur for the first child. That could be a clue.

I would suspect Peter and John Willis were related.

Let's hope a real expert shows up for you!

Zib

[zibetha]

I seem to have hit cancel on my addition to this. William Willis was the grandfather of Jane Richards whose husband, Stephen Blewett 1797, was my 4th cousin 5 times removed. Restored, but I said it better in the first place.I have DNA matches building up my connection to the area re: Blewetts and Harveys. I keep gathering information and welcome everyone's help.


Z

[Cornish Terrier]

There is another William Willis who could be involved - baptised at Paul in 1619 to Roger Willis.

I am trying to do a little work on this problem to help you out but I am a little short on time right now so cannot guarantee results. However let's start with the following:-

Hi, I'm looking at my wife's mother's family and in particular the Willis' of Paul and Mousehole. I have been able to track back, from the information the family held, which went as far as Arthur Willis (b 1824 Mousehole), through three generations back to William Willis (b Paul 1731). I have been able to verify and cross reference William using a record of his marriage to Margaret Vingoe at Paul on 28th February 1753 and the Vingoe family tree.

The way this is written suggests that you are convinced your William was the one baptised at Paul in 1731 to John Willis assuming he had to be around age 21-25 at marriage. If that is indeed what you have concluded then I would advise you to reconsider. In fact I could put up a reasonable argument that your William might actually be the son of Peter baptised in 1720.

I cannot prove that just yet but the reason I suggest it is that a William Willis was buried at Paul in January 1808 with his age recorded as 83. That would put his birth about 1724 but the only William Willis baptisms around that time are 1719, 1720 and then 1731. Allowing for the common error in ages this is a better fit for the January 1720/1 baptism.
The second interesting point of the 1808 burial is that William was recorded as a 'widower' which, of course, confirms that he had been married. If we now look at the potential William Willis marriages we find just three between 1700 and 1780 - one at St Columb Major in 1740 to Elizabeth Raw, one at Falmouth in 1746 to Mary Sampson and one at Paul in 1753 to Margaret Vingoe.

The next point of interest is the burial of Margaret Willis. Now there are three Margaret Willis burials at Paul between the 1753 marriage and 1812 - one in 1773 and one in 1777 with only the name of the deceased recorded and one in 1803 which is of particular interest:-

12th June 1803 Paul - Margaret Willis of Mousehole age 70, married, cancer in her mouth

And her is the William Willis burial:-

24th January 1808 Paul - William Willis of Mousehole age 83, wid., old age

First thing we know from these burials is that William had to have been still alive in 1803. The second thing is that after 1803 there is just ONE William Willis burial in the OPC database between 1803 and 1882 and that is at Paul in 1808. The conclusion therefore is that these two burials must be of husband and wife which in turn tells us that William is more likely to have been the son of Peter Willis baptised in 1720.

I will try to do some more on this during the day as I get time and if I find anything of interest will post it here.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

A little more input regarding the name 'Arthur'.

I have noted that a child named Arthur was baptised to Roger Willis at Paul in 1713 so we know the name existed prior to the marriage of William and Margaret.
I also noticed a child Arthur baptised to 'Arthur' and Blanch Willis at Paul in 1744 making just two examples of the name in the Willis family prior to 1754. (Bearing in mind that the earliest baptisms in the OPC database for Paul are currently from 1694.)

That Roger apparently named a son Arthur points to a reasonably valid reason for William and Margaret to have used the name. Perhaps Arthur died young or tragically for example. But then we have the problem of Arthur son of Arthur and Blanch.

And just what is that problem? Well, that problem is that there is no record of a marriage between an Arthur Willis and anyone named Blanch!!!

BUT!! - PETER Willis and Blanch Keigwin, both of Paul, were married at Madron on July 13th 1734!

Zib mentioned a naming pattern in her post and I think it worth noting that now. The normal pattern would be for the first son to be named either for either the father or grandfather of the child and or the first daughter to be named for the mother or paternal grandmother. Probably more common that the first son and daughter were named after the paternal grandparents but that was not always the case.

The children of William and Margaret Willis in order were Arthur, Jane, William, John, Margaret, Thomasine, Nicholas, Mary and Elizabeth.

Arthur - unkown for the time being.
Jane - I would expect her to be named for her paternal grandmother (see Margaret below)
William - this one is obvious and he is named for his own father.
John - with two sons named before him he could have been named either for his maternal grandfather (see Margaret) or possibly for a brother of either of his parents. More likely for the grandfather.
Margaret Vingoe was baptised at Sennen 6th January 1732/3 daughter of John Vingoe and Margaret Reed so daughter Margaret is obviously named for her mother or, perhaps, her maternal grandmother BUT she is the SECOND daughter. And that then suggests the first daughter was most likely named for the paternal grandmother. And that being the case would point to the parents of William Willis being Roger Willis and Jane Crankan!
Thomasine - Roger Willis gave this name to two daughters so perhaps that is significant!!!
Nicholas - a name used by Peter Willis
Mary - being a common name and her so far down the list of children makes it difficult to speculate.
Elizabeth - same comments as for Mary.

Worth noting that Margaret Vingoe had only one sibling - her brother William baptised in 1730.

The 1744 baptism of Arthur is interesting although really only for the fact that his father was actually Peter Willis. (It was far from uncommon for the Vicar to fill out the register incorrectly by inserting the name of the father the same as that of a son. That is to say if the son, as in this case, was named Arthur then the vicar would write in 'Arthur' as the name of the father when it should have been something else. This also happened in the case of female children with the name of a daughter and the name of the mother being identically entered even though the mother's name might have been different. And there were also instances of the child's name being entered incorrectly as that of the father or mother)

But since checking further I find there was definitely at least one earlier Arthur Willis who died at Paul in 1705 and he could account for the name being used by Roger and Peter.

One thing appears certain and that is that Arthur was not the name of William Willis's father so the question is just why was that name used for his first child. It also appears certain that William did not name a son for his own father.

William son of Roger and William son of Peter were baptised just 1 year apart and we already know the age of William as recorded at his burial must be incorrect. But I am still unable to determine exactly who was the father of William Willis.

More work to be done!

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

I have located and downloaded a Will that might help us solve at least part of this problem. It is the 1770 Will of a William Willis of Mousehole who appears to have been unmarried and he leaves bequests to the following:-

Mary wife of William Pentreath of Mousehole
nephew Peter Willis of Mousehole
Elizabeth wife of Henry Pentreath of Mousehole
Phillis wife of Thomas Wright of Mousehole

Nephew Peter Willis is the only one whose relationship is described and I think he may be the Peter Willis married at Paul in 1773 to Elizabeth Pentreath purely because his signiature matches the signiature of Peter Willis who witnessed the marriage of Thomas Wright and Phillis Willis. The marriages involved are all at Paul:-

24th July 1756 - Henry Pentreath of Paul and Elizabeth Willis of Paul
31st January 1761 - William Pentreath of Paul and Mary Willis of Paul
19th February 1770 - Thomas Wright of Paul and Phillis Willis of Paul
23rd February 1773 - Peter Willis of Paul and Elizabeth Pentreath of Paul

As I sort of indicated above I suspect Peter Willis who married in 1773 and Elizabeth Willis who married in 1770 may be brother and sister in which case William Willis would be uncle to both.
Elizabeth Willis of 1756 and Mary Willis of 1761 I think are most likely to be siblings of William Willis himself.

So what I have to try and do now is to determine exactly which family Peter and his probable sister belong to which should give me a name to try and match as a brother to William. That should then allow me to identify the parents of William which I hope will be Roger, Peter or John.
If the father turns out to be John then we still have a problem but if the testator was the son of Roger or Peter then it leaves the other of those two to be the William you are looking for.

I have some other things to tend to this afternoon and then a debriefing at the fire station tonight but I will try and solve this part of the problem as soon as I possibly can.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

Right - I think I have a couple of more answers but firstly I will deal with the one I just found.

I have been processing Paul marriages, baptisms and burials for the early half of the 18th Century given that is of most interest at the moment. The most recent marriage I have looked at was that of PETER Willis and Blanch Keigwin at Madron in 1734.

It appears that 'Peter' and Blanch had but one child - ARTHUR son of ARTHUR and Blanch Willis baptised 19th August 1744 at Paul. (Remember that I stated in my earlier post I could not find any marriage anywhere for an Arthur Willis to anyone named Blanch!)

Young Arthur Willis was buried at Paul 6th November 1748 'son of ARTHUR Willis'

It was at this point that a penny dropped!

Remember also that it was PETER Willis and Blanch !!!!

Now that penny that dropped and made that awful dent in my head seems to have caused some possibly dormant brain cells to do a little work and they came up with what seems like a sensible solution to part of our problem.

My conclusion is that Peter Willis and Arthur Willis were one and the same person. He was baptised as 'Arthur' son of Roger Willis but for some unknown reason married as 'Peter' Willis then reverted to Arthur for the baptism and burial of his son.
This now fits in quite neatly with another part of the problem I have been working on - that 1770 Will of William Willis.

The information I gleaned from the Will and the subsequent work through the registers to find marriages for those mentioned in the Will all pointed to the marriage of Nicholas Willis and Christian Pentreath at Paul in 1730. All four of the people named in the Will are almost certainly children from that marriage:-

William Pentreath and Mary Willis married31st January 1761 at Paul
Mary daughter of Nicholas Willis baptised 23rd April 1738 at Paul (only confusion here is another Mary baptised in 1731 that I cannot find a burial for)

Henry Pentreath amd Elizabeth Willis married 24th July 1756 at Paul
Elizabeth daughter of Nicholas Willis baptised 26th December 1735 at Paul

Peter Willis and Elizabeth Pentreath married 23rd February 1773 at Paul
Peter son of Nicholas Willis baptised 10th August 1746 at Paul

Thomas Wright and Phillis Willis married 19th February 1770 at Paul
Phillis daughter of Nicholas Willis baptised 27th December 1743 at Paul

Regarding Mary Willis - it is possible, given the order of the bequests, that it was Mary Willis of 1731 who married William Pentreath and that the second Mary is an error in the register with the wrong name entered. It is also possible, and certainly not unheard of, to have two children of the same name. I have positive proof in Wills of that having happened.

Now, the only Nicholas Willis we have is the son of PETER Willis baptised at Paul 4th November 1705 and by inference from the Will this means that it was William son of PETER Willis who wrote that Will in 1770 and died apparently unmarried.

That in turn strongly suggests that your William was indeed the son of Roger Willis baptised at Paul 11th March 1719/20. And that also makes sense because Peter/Arthur Willis who married Blanch Keigwin must have been Arthur son of Roger Willis baptised at Paul 23rd August 1713.

That then seems to offer some sort of sensible solution to the naming of Arthur Willis by William in 1754.

I will be tidying this all up to add into my database so if you have any queries please let me know and I will answer as soon as I can.

CT

[Cornish Terrier]

Back from the fire brigade debrief and now, hopefully, my last post for the night.

The focus here is on the family of Nicholas Willis and Christian Pentreath where there are baptisms for two daughters named Mary (1731 and 1738) with the problem being no burial found for the Mary in 1731.

I don't yet know the parents of Christian Pentreath but I do know that Nicholas Willis had two sisters named Mary with the first dying about age 4. But even if Christian Pentreath's mother was named Mary it is still a little unusual to name the first child and first daughter Mary.
On saying that I do have to also admit it unusual to find the names of the groom's parents 'reserved' for naming the last two children in the family.

Putting that conundrum aside for the time being the purpose of this message is to pass on my latest information regarding the 1761 marriage of William Pentreath and Mary Willis. And that information is that it now appears certain it was the Mary of 1738 who was the bride in 1761.

From the Paul Parish Register (burials) :-

16th April 1794 - Mary Pentreath of Mousehole age 56, married, consumption

I have had a quick check and can find no other Pentreath marriage where the bride's name was Mary who could be a match.

Further investigation will be required to determine what happened to Mary of 1731. That would have to include the possibility that the name 'Mary' may be an error in the register although it is possible a burial may not have made it into the register in the first place.

I am sure all interested in this thread will have plenty to think about for a while so I will leave it at that for now.

CT

[djl]

Thank you all for this information, i will use it to revisit my records. it may be that I was barking up the wrong tree entirely, which might account for why i got stuck.

[Cornish Terrier]

Regarding Mary Willis - it is possible, given the order of the bequests, that it was Mary Willis of 1731 who married William Pentreath and that the second Mary is an error in the register with the wrong name entered. It is also possible, and certainly not unheard of, to have two children of the same name. I have positive proof in Wills of that having happened.

I believe I can now pretty much confirm that it was the 1738 Mary Willis who married William Pentreath based on the burials below:-

16th April 1794 Paul Mary Pentreath of Mousehole age 56, married, consumption
18th July 1810 Paul William Pentreath of Mousehole age 76, widower, dropsy

CT