After my success with Martha’s origins, I applied the same method to John Blackwell (later Bracknell).
I had the marriage certificate from 1808 saying John was a bachelor ‘of this parish’ and a death certificate from 1845 giving his age as 75.
I also had a removal order from 1812 where John, Martha and their two children Henry and John were being removed from the hamlet of Frimley in the parish of Ash back to Odiham, showing that Odiham was considered their parish of legal settlement in 1812. Under the Settlement Acts, such orders were only issued when a family was thought likely to become chargeable to the poor rates and did not have settlement in the parish where they were living. For an OPS, each removal order effectively pins a family to a “home” parish, and shows how far they moved before being pushed back.
Note: Enquiries with the Hampshire Archives are underway to get a copy of this removal order, but for now, all I have is this:
Removal Order for the removal to Odiham of John Blackwell, his wife Martha, and their sons: Henry and John, from Hamlet of Frimley in the Parish of Ash, Surrey Description: Age of their sons: Henry aged two and John aged one.
Update: See this post for the contents of the removal notice:
Removal Notice – The Bracknells of Odiham
From census and death records, John implied year of birth is c. 1771. There is a potential baptism for John Bracknell in Kingsclere, Hampshire, in 1777 but otherwise very little in the way of potential candidates that can be securely linked to John. There is a baptism for John Bicknell in 1784 in Elvetham which is a poor chronological fit. Extensive searches of the Hampshire parish register indexes for John B‑ baptisms between 1769 and 1773 have not produced any convincing candidate for John Bracknell, suggesting that if a baptism exists it is either unrecorded, lost, or indexed under a significantly different spelling, or perhaps he was not from Hampshire after all.
Aside from his own marriage in Odiham, John was a witness at two others. In 1807 he and Elizabeth Peacock were witnesses at the marriage of Joseph Streams and Frances Dibbs. Then in 1810, he and Jane Welch were witnesses at the marriage of Sarah Welch and William Vaus (Vass). The witnesses at the marriage of John and Martha were William Croker and Jane Welch.
In 1841, John (70) and Martha (60) were living at Hook Common, and birthplace simply shows ‘Y’ to being born in Hampshire. When he died in 1845, his age was 75 years. The informant was Sarah Englefield (not Martha) however the relationship with Sarah Englefield is not known.
FAN networks (Friends/Associates/Neighbours) research for all of the above names has not yielded any significant connections.
Sources: