A trip to the Lincolnshire Archives – part 4: the treasures we found

In this post I wrap up my four-part series on researching my husband’s British roots by looking at the Maws of Wainfleet St Mary and Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. I began with a basic patrilineal tree and ended with a plethora of materials including original eighteenth century wills. If you’d like to begin with the first post, see A trip to the Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, UK – part 1: The story begins.

The finds

I am still reeling from the records we found in Lincoln. I’ve collected over two hundred notes relating to this research, so let’s get to the good stuff.

Original Family Documents

I’ll start with the best of the best. We found not one, not two, not three, but FOUR original Maw wills dated 1762-1838:

• Thomas Maw (1762)¹
• Simon Maw (1795)²
• John Maw (1837)³
• Thomas Maw (1838)⁴

About 18th-19th century documents

An original eighteenth century document is a time machine. In an age where we increasingly rely on digitized records, archives are at risk of disappearing,⁵ and collections inadvertently thrown in the trash,⁶ a two-hundred-fifty year old document is an absolute miracle of survival. Each of the four wills were substantial specimens of period documents made of heavy cotton paper, using ink dipped from a well. I didn’t measure them, but the variations in size suggested the paper was handmade, roughly 28×45 cm (11×17.5″).

Most were filed individually, but one came sealed in a book. I’d theorize individual wills were collected, sorted alphabetically, then glued onto the pages. Of course, we didn’t know that when we started because there was no index. In the below image can be seen my husband’s hands, carefully turning the pages to eventually find the will of Simon Maw (1795).⁷ He said later that he’d had to read every will until he figured out the alpha sorting.

Surprisingly for such old records, gloves were not required.

The 1762 signature of Thomas Maw

It was a thrill to see the will of the earliest known progenitor, Thomas Maw of Wainfleet [St Mary] (1713-62).⁸ Aside from the wealth of details, this document has Thomas’s signature and seal: Tho^s Maw. A signature is a relative rarity in the genealogical world because most records are not created or signed by the ancestor (including birth, baptism, burial, census, death, grave, immigration, probate, tax, and transcript records). Records which might have a signature would include marriage registrations, personal papers (e.g., family bible, holographic will, letters) and government applications (e.g., homestead, immigration, or military records).

There is a LOT that may be gained from four wills’ worth of information but I’d like to start with the biggest question first: if I can identify three wills immediately, who was the Thomas Maw whose will papers were dated 1838?

Will the right Thomas Maw stand up?

It can get hectic at the archives, where time is short and research questions multiply faster than gold from Rumpelstiltskin’s spinning wheel. My rule is collect first and analyze later. I requested five total wills and imaged the four most likely to be related to the Maws. Three of the wills – Thomas Maw (1762), Simon Maw (1795), and John Maw (1837) – matched my family tree. One did not: the 1838 will of Thomas Maw.⁹ Was this another Thomas Maw or was it a second will for an existing Thomas Maw?

To see how this second Thomas Maw might be related, let’s do a quick family tree sketch. It was common for the Maws to reuse names if a child died, so two children named Thomas in the same generation is possible. Below you can see the progenitor, Thomas Maw, who died in 1762. Let’s call him “Thomas Maw (1).” The date of death – 1762 – both identifies his will and rules out the possibility the 1838 will might be his. Thomas (1) had at least one son named Thomas, born in 1746^.10 Let’s call him “Thomas Maw (2).” A possible second son, “Thomas Maw, son of Thomas and Elizabeth,” died in 1751.¹¹ We don’t know if this is the same as Thomas Maw (2) so we will give him “Thomas Maw (3).” Thomas (1 ) also had a grandson named Thomas. Let’s call him “Thomas Maw (4).” See the sketch below.

We are trying to determine whose is the will of Thomas Maw (1838). We can rule out three of the four choices – Thomas nos. 1, 3, and 4 – because all died before 1838. But just because we have a candidate, Thomas (2), doesn’t mean we can assume they are a match. More details are needed. To do that, we turn to the will contents.

What does the will of Thomas Maw (1838) say?

The will provides important genealogical clues, including the date of the will, the names of family and witnesses, and the location: “This is the Last Will and Testament of me Thomas Maw of Gainsburgh in the County of Lincoln Ship owner made and published this Twenty Eight day of February in the Year of our Lord One thousand Eight hundred and Twenty three…”.¹² Thomas gives the names of his “brother John Maw of Gainsburgh,” “brother-in-law John Derrick,” and “dear wife Ann Maw.” Can we assume Ann’s maiden name is Derrick?

The will is dated 28 Feb 1823. Why then is the date given as 1838?

1838 was the year of death and probate. The fourth page said, “On the seventeenth day of January A.D. 1838, John Maw & John Derrick the executors…” Also, the lower left paragraph gives the date of death: “The Testator died on the 16th day of March 1837.” If this is Thomas Maw (2), he was ninety-one.

Is the fourth Maw will related to my Maws? Thomas said his brother’s name was John. Our tree has siblings Thomas and John Maw, but the evidence is still too thin to accept. Referring back to our family tree sketch, it is possible this will is related to my Maw family. Did Thomas Maw (1) have two sons named Thomas, and did one of them marry Ann Derrick? Further research is needed to find Thomas Maw’s death records and/or the Derrick family, whose children included Ann and John.

Collections and Transcripts

Aside from originals, genealogists research the records around an ancestor. Such records could include church records, clippings, histories, land records, maps, notebooks, pedigree charts, and transcripts. I mentioned in my previous post, Visiting the Lincolnshire Archives: Tips for Genealogists, part 3, that a researcher should understand who created the records.

The H.W. Brace Collection

Harold Witty Brace was a Quaker historian who gifted his work to the Lincolnshire Archives.¹³ Among his collection are notebooks, pedigree charts, and transcripts. I collected:

• Transcripts of Quaker births, including notes on the meetings where the event was reported
• Transcripts of Quaker marriages, including notes on the meetings where the event was reported
• Transcripts of Quaker deaths, including notes on the meetings where the event was reported
• Transcripts of Quaker wills
• Maps and plans of Quaker burials
• Transcripts of title deeds

In a word, there is A LOT to process from the H.W. Brace collection alone.

Other Records

It would be easy to overlook books in this cornucopia of materials but I will close with two significant titles.

The Society of Friends was acutely aware of the power of property. Quaker Meeting Minutes discussed property-related topics such as assignments (the transfer of rights from one party to another), burying grounds, indentures, leases, meeting houses, mortgages, and trustees. To put it simply: if a Society of Friends member left their land to the Society, you can bet there are records in triplicate to record the gift. A book such as The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain, then, is not only a record of places of worship, but a snapshot of Quaker land management.¹⁴ If there was a Meeting House, there was a cluster of Quakers in the vicinity.

As every family historian knows, locating a family history is absolute genealogical gold. Most of these goldmines are often hard to locate because they are short-run and unpublished. Not so with Mary Bowen Burtt’s The Burtts: a Lincolnshire Quaker Family, whose descendants were so numerous she was able to convince her family to publish.¹⁵ The Burtts, cousins to the Bayldons, Mobleys, Nainbys, Palians, and Maws, were among the founding Quaker families of Lincolnshire.

The City of Lincoln

When the archives were closed, my husband and I enjoyed the City of Lincoln. The cathedral’s bells were pealing as we arrived in the golden hour. We were enchanted by the old town, swearing to return, but research got in the way. We plan to return.

Afterword

We had a two day blitz at the Lincolnshire Archives, and the second day was helped enormously by having my husband as research assistant. While I wrote citations, he did the reading. It was easy to decide which wills we wanted, but we had to be more circumspect with the Brace binders. Quakers are meticulous record-keepers. It was possible every page had a distant connection to my husband’s lineage, and we had to decide i) what we would gather; ii)how we would keep it organized; and iii)what we might reasonably use. As we read, we started to make more family connections: from Maw to Burtt to Palian. In other words, we were able to answer all our previous genealogy questions, and think up ten more.

Thank yous

Thank yous to my husband’s family who did all the research before me, and for keeping the documents, notes, and photos to share with me.

[23 Aug 2024] Thank you to Ken McKinlay for his comment, “The current view is that wearing gloves when handling paper causes more harm to the artifacts by increasing the risk of the pages being torn while trying to turn the pages. Instead, archives recommend just having clean hands when dealing with uncontaminated paper.”

References

¹U.K., [will of] Thomas Maw (1762), Wainfleet St Mary, Lincolnshire, England, LCC Wills 1751-1800, L-R [finding aid], Lincoln Consistory Court, Wills for 1751-1800, sec. “M,” eighth page, ID no 1762/151, Thomas Maw, Wainfleet St. Mary, four loose pages, Lincolnshire Archives, St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 9 and 19 Jul 2024.

²U.K., [will of] Simon Maw (1795), Croft, County of Lincoln, England, Simon Maw, Croft, four loose pages, Lincolnshire Archives, St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB., email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 19 Jul 2024.

³U.K., [will of] John Maw (1837), Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England, LCC Wills 1821-1840, [finding aid], Lincoln Consistory Court, Wills for 1831-1840, Page No. 2, 23/09/1992, ID no 1837/269, John Maw, Gainsborough, six loose pages, Lincolnshire Archives, St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 19 Jul 2024.

⁴U.K., [will of] Thomas Maw (1838), Gainsburgh, Lincolnshire, England, LCC Wills 1821-1840 [finding aid], Lincoln Consistory Court, Wills for 1831-1840, Page No. 2, 23/09/1992, ID no 1838/224, Thomas Maw, Gainsborough, four loose pages, Lincolnshire Archives, St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 19 Jul 2024.

⁵Judy Russell, “NARA NYC closing,” 14 Aug 2024, blog post, The Legal Genealogist, accessed 17 Aug 2024. With sixteen days’ notice, NARA NYC closed its doors forever on 16 Aug 2024.

⁶Deborah Hastings, “Inside a Dumpster, California Man Finds Trove of Ancient Books Owned by Thomas Jefferson,” 31 Jul 2018, news article, Inside Edition, accessed 17 Aug 2024.

⁷Will of Simon Maw (1795).

⁸Will of Thomas Maw (1762).

⁹Will of Thomas Maw (1838).

¹⁰U.K, H.W. Brace, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, “Quaker Transcripts of Births, Marriages, Burials,” Lincolnshire, England, box of three loose leaf binders, ID no. 2-BRACE/2/1, Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, Lincolnshire St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 9 Jul 2024; [Transcripts of Quaker births], undated, looseleaf binder.

¹¹U.K, H.W. Brace, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, “Quaker Transcripts of Births, Marriages, Burials,” Lincolnshire, England, box of three loose leaf binders, ID no. 2-BRACE/2/1, Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, Lincolnshire St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 9 Jul 2024; [Transcripts of Quaker deaths and burials], undated, looseleaf binder.

¹²Will of Thomas Maw (1838).

¹³U.K, H.W. Brace, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, ID no. 2-BRACE, Lincolnshire Archives, Lincoln, Lincolnshire St. Rumbold’s Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB, email Lincolnshire.archives@lincolnshire.gov.uk, tel 01522 782040, accessed 19 Jul 2024; Harold Witty Brace, (-1962), clerk, Linc. Monthly Meeting Society of Friends, Deposited Records Accession no. 2-BRACE, after 1962, collection includes bishops transcripts, parish registers, notes and extracts for the history of Quakerism, notes and extracts on the history of Gainsborough (12 vols).

¹⁴Butler David M, “Lincolnshire,” in The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain, vol. 1, 2 vols. (London, UK: Friends Historical Society, 1999), 946.

¹⁵Burtt Mary Bowen, “Chapter IV: William and Mary Burtt of Broughton,” in The Burtts: A Lincolnshire Quaker Family (1500-1900) (Hull, UK: Burtt Brothers, 19 West Street, 1937), 53–64.