08 November 2021

19.2.2 Tracing the children of John Stoney, Yeoman of Kettlewell (1703-1771)

My supposed 6xgreat grandfather John Stoney’s will was written just before his death in April 1771 in Kettlewell, West Riding of Yorkshire. In it he names his wife, Ann Pawson, his son Jonathan Stoney and daughters Dorothy, Ann, Mary, Alice and Hannah Stoney.

A search at FindMyPast for the baptisms at Kettlewell of these children after his marriage to Ann Pawson in 1748 reveals the following:

  • ·       Dorothea, daughter of John Stoney, Yeoman, 29 January 1752 (Age 19 in 1771)
  • ·       Mary, daughter of John Stoney of Kettlewell, Yeoman, 27 March 1756 (age 15)
  • ·       Alice, daughter of John Stoney and Ann, 17 April 1760 (age 11)
  • ·       Hannah, daughter of John Stoney, 14 February 1762 (age 9)

It seems that the couple had at least two other daughters who died in infancy, as the following baptisms and burials were also found at FindMyPast:

  • ·       Elin, daughter of John Stoney of Kettlewell, Yeoman, 31 October 1750 (buried 6 November 1751, daughter of John Stoney, Yeoman)
  • ·       Rachel, daughter of John Stoney and Ann, 5 December 1757 (buried 30 January 1759, daughter of John Stoney, Yeoman)

I have not found the baptism of daughter Ann, who is listed second in her father’s will after Dorothy and before Mary and was presumably born between the two, in about 1754 – she would therefore have been 16-17 when her father died.

His son Jonathan Stoney, who inherited land and property, appears to have been a child of John Stoney’s previous marriage. A Jonathan Stoney was baptised at Kettlewell on 6 February 1743, son of John Stoney. No mother’s name is given. He would have been 28 at the time of his father’s death.

There is a marriage record for a John Stoney  to Alice Stainforth in 1736 (FamilySearch) in Burnsall, Yorkshire, nine miles from Kettlewell. FindMyPast has a very faint copy of the register of Burnsall for 1736 which shows that ‘John Stoney of Kettlewell Husb. [husbandman] & Alice Stainforth of [the parish of Har?] Spins. Were 3 publishd? lawfully and married in the parish of Burnsall by Mr. [?] on the 3 day of May with certificate from M. Currer Minister of Kettlewell’.



A husbandman was one below a Yeoman in the social strata of the day, but perhaps at that time he only held and worked land on leasehold, later buying his own and therefore being a Yeoman.

An Alice Stoney ‘wife of John Stoney Yeoman of Kettlewell’ was buried in Kettlewell on 26 April 1746, ten years after the marriage, and two years before he married Ann Pawson.

It would seem strange that John Stoney and his first wife Alice only had one son, seven years after their marriage. A search at FindMyPast and FamilySearch for the baptisms of other children of John Stoney in Kettlewell between 1736 and the death of Alice Stoney in Kettlewell in 1746 failed to find any other than Jonathan.

However, two daughters -  children of John Stoney Yeoman - were baptised in Burnsall, where they were married: Elizabeth in February 1737 – nine months after the marriage - and Eleanor in 1738. The baptism records are very hard to read, but the place of residence of the father in both cases looks more like Hartlinton, Moore Side. On another transcript of the marriage record of John Stoney and Alice Stainforth, she is said to be of ‘Hartlinton’ or similar … so there may be a connection. Hartlinton is a tiny village near Burnsall.

There are also two burials in Kettlewell – one at the end of December 1740 for Elin (Eleanor), daughter of John Stoney of Grassington (near Burnsall), Yeoman and for Margaret, daughter of the same, in January 1741. However, John Stoney was registered to vote at Kettlewell in the 1741 general election; is this the same man? Another search at FindMyPast for the 1741 election provides a clue that he might be. John Stoney is registered as a freeholder residing at Grassington, but his freehold property is in Kettlewell!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it seems possible that John Stoney and his wife Alice Stainforth had at least four children: Elizabeth, Elin/Eleanor, Margaret and Jonathan, and that at least two of them had died by the time he married Ann Pawson. Their daughter Elizabeth may have married a Joseph Lyndsey in Kettlewell in 1759, when she would have been about 22 years old (record at FindMyPast).

Of John Stoney’s 11 children from two marriages, only one was male – Jonathan, son with his first wife Alice – and only five of the ten daughters survived beyond infancy. I share what I have found about them all - and the potential links with William Moorhouse Stoney, in another post. 

For the sources mentioned in bold, see blogpost: MyRoots: Lesly's family history: Sources and resources: A quick view

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Purpose of this blog (updated May 2021)

This blog will (eventually) show the ancestry of each of my four grandparents. I've started with my paternal grandfather, James Aaron St...