11 Apr 2023

These are the children of Thomas and Anne Hinson as found in the Helmdon Parish Register images provided by Ancestry.

Marriages of Hinsons in the Helmdon Parish Register images provided by Ancestry:

• 20 Jan 1770, marriage of John Isham of Falcot[?] in the parish of Warpenham, batchelor, and Elizabeth Hinson of this parish, spinster, by banns
• 8 Jun 1778, marriage of Thomas Hinson, widower, and Elizabeth Jordan, spinster, both of this parish, by banns
• 16 Sep 1711, marriage of William Hinson, of Abthorpe, in the parish of Towcester, and Sarah Gilkes of Helmdon

Thomas and Elizabeth went on to have the following children:

I thought I would look at Mary Tew, the daughter of Thomas and Susannah Tew. The truncated description of Susannah Tew’s will mentioned that John Newman had married a daughter of the deceased (Susannah), but the daughter had also passed away prior and I wondered if this was Mary.

I found her marriage to John Newman is in Whittlebury:

• 7 Oct 1736, marriage of John Newman of the parish of Paulerspury and Mary Tew of Whittlebury, having licence. ¹

The will extract mentioned Mary was deceased by 1746 and I found her burial in 1745 in Whittlebury:

• 22 Apr 1745, burial of Mary Newman, the wife of John Newman²

They had several children:

• 20 Nov 1737, baptism of Elizabeth, dau. of John and Mary Newman (PR³, BT⁴)
• 22 Apr 1739, baptism of Tew, son of John and Mary Newman (PR⁵, BT⁶)
• 2 Apr 1741, baptism of Mary, dau. of John and Mary Newman (PR⁷, BT⁸)

There is also a George (1740) and John (1743), sons of John and Hannah Newman, as well as a Mary (1740) daughter of Thomas and Mary Newman.

We should see if we can obtain the marriage licence between John Newman and Mary Tew.

Sourcing Prior Research

In 2012, B wrote up a summary of his research into the Tews⁹. While it is very detailed it doesn’t include sources for the information, except to refer to the IGI, a notoriously unreliable online source. The problem with the IGI is that it is a record of “ordinances” which are ceremonies performed for deceased ancestors (baptism, endowment and sealing). The records it contains were mainly submitted by LDS temple members on family group sheets and each member had to submit four generations of family history. Some submissions were meticulously researched but most were very poorly compiled or contained made up information to meet the member’s goal. Later on the LDS church began to film original parish registers and extract the details into the database to help members compile their family histories. However the earlier submissions were never removed and any corrections were made by submitting new forms causing information to be duplicated. The errors are compounded by the multiple stages of transcription, such as untrained members reading the original registers, copying to family group sheets and church staff then transcribing the written submissions to an online database.

I thought we should revisit B’s information and attempt to find sources for the information. It’s likely that much of it is correct so adding sources should improve our confidence in the research. I’m going to take extracts from the document and then attempt to corroborate the statements with sources.

From “The Tews of Eydon and Shalstone”, page 1:

… Corbett Tew living in Shalstone, just over the Northants border in Buckinghamshire , in the 1750s , led to a family of Tews which are still represented there today. There were considerable difficulties in finding links to earlier generations however. Despite the immaculate records of Shalstone, back to the 16th century, there are no earlier records of Tews living there. Furthermore, Corbett Tew did not appear to be born there. Cprbett is such an unusual forename. It occurs less than ten times in Parish Records recorded by the International Geneological Index, and three of these are Tews. There was a Corbett Tew (born in 1727) that would have fitted “our” Corbett’s dates perfectly, but he was born in Whittlebury, Northants. At first I could find no way of establishing whether the connection was a genuine one. His father was John Tew and his mother was Susannah. It was only when I was able to establish that Susannah was Susannah Coleman of Sulgrave, that a very useful link revealed itself, for Susannah’s father was Corbett Coleman! The rest of the connections were then established when the Tews were found to be in the village of Eydon, close to Sulgrave.

We can’t find any evidence of a Corbett Tew being born in Whittlebury at any time at all. However we know that there is a Thomas and Susannah Tew present at the time. We have the baptism of Mary Tew on 24 Nov 1717 in Whittlebury in the Parish Register¹⁰ and Bishops Transcripts¹¹.

The only Corbett Tew baptism we have found is on 23 Aug 1726, in Plumpton, son of William and Isabella Tew.

Other than our ancestor, William (1657), there is little to report on this family. Edward 1 dies as a child, whilst there are no records of offspring from John (1656) or Henry (1663). Elizabeth marries John Smallbone in 1689. There were Smallbones in Eydon format least the 16th century.[ Hugh Tew (1572) married Katherine Smallbone in 1596] The Parish Records from 1630 -1660 were not as well kept as previously, presumably as this was the time of Civil War.

I read through the images of the Parish Registers of Eydon¹² from 1644 through to 1674 and found the following baptisms:

• 29 Dec 1644, baptism of William, son of George and Anne Tue¹³
• 20 Jan 1645, baptism of Mary, dau. of John and Mary Tue¹⁴
• 16 Feb 1645, burial of Anis Tue, wife of Martin Tue¹⁵
• 16 Mar 1645, baptism of Alice, dau. of Edward and Mary Tue¹⁶
• 8 May 1845, burial of Mary, dau. of John Tue¹⁷
• 3 Aug 1651, baptism of Mary, dau. of Robert Tue¹⁸
• ?? Mar 1655, baptism of Elizabeth, dau of Richard and Elizabeth Tue, born 1 Feb¹⁹
• 9 Feb 1656, baptism of John, son of Edward and Ann Tue, born 16 Jan²⁰
• 12 Apr 1658, burial of Edward Tue²¹
• 7 Sep 1662, baptism of George Tue, son of Edward Tue and Christian his wife²²
• 21 Aug 1663, burial of George Tue, mason²³
• 29 Sep 1663, burial of Elizabeth Tue, dau. of Edward and Christian Tue²⁴
• 7 Oct? 1664, baptism of Henry Tue, son of Edward and Anne Tue²⁵
• 30 July 1665, burial of George Tue, son of George Tue, mason²⁶
• 8 Jun 1665, burial of Elizabeth Tue, dau. of Mary Tue²⁷
• 10 Jun 1665, baptism of Martha, dau. of Edward and Christian Tue²⁸
• 18 Mar 1665, burial of Martha, dau. of Edward Tue²⁹
• 6 May 1666, baptism of Elizabeth, dau. of Edward and Anne Tue³⁰
• 10 Dec 1667, baptism of Dorothy, dau. of Edward and Christian Tue³¹
• 7 Mar 1669, burial of Ann Tew, dau. of Mary Tew, widow³²
• 17 Oct 1669, baptism of Lydia, dau. of Edward and Christian Tue³³
• 14 Nov 1669, baptism of Edward, son of Edward and Anne Tue, he a shepherd³⁴
• 13 Aug 1671, baptism of Mary, dau. of Edward and Christian Tue³⁵

I found the baptisms of John, Henry, Elizabeth and the final Edward. I did didn’t find the baptism or burial of Edward 1, the baptism of William (the expected direct ancestor) or Hannah.

I also didn’t find the marriage of Edward and Ann. I did a wider search and found an Edward Tue and Ann Linnell (indexed as sinneth) marrying in Long Buckby in October 1654, which would match the birth of the first child, John:

• 12 Oct 1654, marriage of Edward Tue and Ann Linnell, both of this parish.³⁶

The next section of B’s document shows William Tew marrying a Hannah in 1677.

We have record of a marriage between William (1657) and Hannah,in 1677. and as there is no other William Tew in Eydon, and as the childrens birthdates fit in well with a marriage for William at an age of 20 ,I think that we can be certain that this is a positive link Their first child is called Edward, which of course is William’s fathers name.

I couldn’t find a marriage in Eydon I did find a William Tue in Hinton in the Hedges in 1676 though:

• 1 Jun 1676, marriage of William Tue and Hannah Tibbuts³⁷

I searched baptisms in Eydon from 1676 to 1695:

• 18 Mar 1676, baptism of Edward, son of William and Hannah Tue³⁸
• 17 Jan 1678, baptism of Anne, dau. of William and Hannah Tue³⁹
• 9 Sep 1681, baptism of William, son of William and Hannah Tue⁴⁰
• 15 Jul 1683, baptism of Hannah, dau. of William and Hannah Tue⁴¹
• 15 Feb 1684, baptism of Anne, dau. of Thomas and Joane Tue⁴²
• 31 May 1686, baptism of Thomas, son of William and Hannah Tue⁴³

I also checked marriages in Eydon from 1658:

• 8 Aug 1659, marriage of John Tue, of this parish, and Mary Hall[or Kall], of this parish⁴⁴
• 29 Oct 1667, marriage of John Tue and Elizabeth Greene, both otp, by banns⁴⁵
• [betw. Aug 26 and Dec 23] 1678, burial of Mary Tue, widow⁴⁶

I also found a torn page that appears to list landowners in the parish. There were some fragmentary mentions of Tews

…the same furlong Edward Tew south

..cksmore Henry Tew north

…ird Robert Tew east⁴⁷

I established that William and Hannah Tew did have children in Eydon: Edward (1676), Anne (1678), William (1681), Hannah (1683) and Thomas (1684), but they didn’t marry there. They may have married in Hinton in the Hedges though.

Maybe William was born in Hinton in the Hedges.

I had a search for William Tue/Tews born around 1655 in Northamptonshire. I came across the following in Towcester:

• 1658, William the sonne of John Tue, gent, was borne February 18 and baptized March 131⁴⁸

From “The Colemans of Chacombe”, page 6:

At this point of the family history we lose touch with Eydon […] The difficulty we are presented with now is to explain the short association of the Tews with Whittlebury. Thomas and Hannah were married in Whittlebury but Thomas is recorded from Eydon, and Susannah is from Sulgrave. This makes it very likely that they knew each other before they arrived at Whittlebury, because Eydon and Sulgrave are adjacent villages. There are Colemans who move to Whittlebury in the 1730s (Richard Coleman) and these may be relatives of Susannah, but this is the time she is moving to Shalstone. At this point I will give a brief outline of Hannahs [Susannah Coleman] family, who are first found in Chacombe

Thomas and Susannah have two recorded children, Corbett (1714) and Mary (1717). Mary marries John Newman in 1736 in Whittlebury, whilst Corbett makes the move from Whittlebury to Shalstone in Buckinghamshire, where the next part of the Tew saga is located.

As mentioned before, there is no record of Corbett Tew’s birth. Earlier, B mentions a birth year of 1727 in Whittlebury but here he believes it is 1714.

We confirmed Mary’s baptism on 24 Nov 1717 in Whittlebury, as mentioned before. Her marriage to John Newman is also confirmed as 7 Oct 1736 in Whittlebury.

From “The Tews in Shalstone”, page 9:

Thomas and Susanna Tew, who were the parents of Corbett Tew. Were married in Whittlebury in 1710, but moved to Shalstone .Their son Corbett was born here in 1714, and was living here at the time of his marriage, which was in Shalstone in 1752 to Sarah

Corbett Tew (the elder) was born in 1714 and died in 1794. He married late to Sarah (when he was 36),but had several children by her. We have no date of birth for her and she may have been much younger than Corbett. Information on these is from the IGI for Shalston(e).

We didn’t have time to continue the investigation here.