Annotated page from St. Margaret's Church, Ockley: Parish Register and Margesson Family Records (1539–1707)
Loading Annotated page from St. Margaret's Church, Ockley: Parish Register and Margesson Family Records (1539–1707)…
- Document type
- Church Record
- Date
- 1634
Not Started
Along with the family records there are other notes scribbled (and I don't use that word lightly) across the pages, whether or not they contain the village's baptisms, marriages and burials. These notes include farm accounts and calculations of who owed the writer amounts of money! The writing is in many different orientations, even upside down! This probably shows that the writer didn't have much, if any at all, respect for the register. It appears that in some places it has been used for handwriting practice, with the numbers from 1 to 45 written neatly in a block on one page, amongst a few lines of 8s scattered in any free space.
Some of the notes are rather odd. "John Margesson His Book Given Him By Nobody" is written on one page. There seems to have been a succession of 'owners' of the register, or a disagreement about who exactly owned it, as William son of Richard and John have claimed ownership in several different places between the pages. Who knows if it is the same William and John all the way through! There are many other names also written throughout the book, so who were these people? Were they friends of the family, scribbling their names in the book for posterity. Names include John Lipscom, John Longhurst and Young Roger Pichard.
There are also quotes and sayings scattered through the book. A version of a bible quote from Exodus 20:2 reads, "The Lord thy God/Am a Jelouis God/Who Brought Out of/The Land of Egypt out/Of The House of Bondage".