Hurst families of Abbotts Ann, near Andover, Hampshire, England.

The county that is now known as Hampshire was for a period of time known as the County of Southampton or Southamptonshire, which is distinct for the Town, latterly City (1964) of Southampton.

is the Register booke of Abbots Ann xxxx xxxx those married Baptized and funerals xxxx common xxx in the xxx of our Lord God Anno 1561.

xxxx fo the late Statutes for that xxx made and provided in the XXXIX year of the Reign of our most gracious and Sovereign lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God of England, France and Ireland, Queene, defender of the faith, ec, and in the  xxxx of Richard Murkleston,  Minster those.

The English monarchy maintained their claim to the French throne until 1802, following the French Revolution 1789-1799 which resulted in France becoming a Republic.

 The Act being referred to is for Elizabeth I regnal year, XXXIX, or thirty nine, is 1596/7 AD.

Calculation of regnal years.

Read a little of the history of Act for the Keeping of Parish Registers.

Location

Further maps of Abbotesan, aka Abbots Ann aka Abbotts Ann.

Saxton's map of Hampshire 1575, Abbotesan and Andover

Taylor Hampshire 1759 Abbots Ann and Andover area

The process

The Abbotts Ann families are going to be a significant challenge to separate into distinct families from the early baptism records.

The process is going to be slow and long. The dataset is already established in My TNG database. Then the first part for Abbotts Ann is to create a SQL report within My TNG, which focuses on any of the place fields containing Abbots Ann. I don't want to restrict it to just Abbotts Ann Parish as that would exclude any potential more specific addresses, perhaps gained from Census or Tithe Apportionment data. That report is then embedded into a Joomla Article Hurst families in North West Hampshire as a live dynamic report.

So to the data. On the Hampshire Genealogical Society Baptism Index, set the filter to surname Hurst and Parish, Abbotts Ann. Then choose a father's forename to further filter by. 

Now the magic happens. Say the filter is set for William. There are twenty baptisms where the father's name is William or W between 1563 and 1616, a period of 53 years. Unlikely to be all the same father, but not impossible, with multiple wife's, sequentially. Without twins, possibly one child per year, perhaps every other year. Repeating children names, may be and indicator of a different group, but not necessarily as, with a high infant mortality, names are often reused following infant deaths. So it comes down to inspecting the dates, looking for gaps, that may suggest different generations, and estimating the family groups at this initial stage. Accepting that they may have to change if further, contradictory, information comes to light later. Some would put all the baptisms against one or multiple William's, and others, from a pure data perspective, there is no evidence that there are not twenty separate father's called William, which would give one baptism one father, one family relationship, Possible but improbable.

The baptism records are added to My TNG database. Check that the same information flows through to the Joomla article report, and check that it has been input correctly my me.

Add the same information into my 'work in progress' Ancestry tree as an unattached or orphaned branch, using the same assumed family groups. 

Check for other users researching the same people and check for any DNA matches to those researchers.

Find the base data for the baptisms in the Ancestry information, and hopefully find images of the source data.

If so make copies of the source data and prepare the images for incorporation in this article as base data.

Using the found source data, create a new transcription direct from the source data, compare and check for transcription errors. Such as the year has changed in March but the original document has not recorded it, resulting in an incorrect year going into the record. Perhaps therefore, apparently making two children in the same year, born too close together, but not twins, and therefore a different family. Also, looking for additional information on the source data which did not make it into the transcribed data.

Update the Mt TNG database and Ancestry with any necessary amendments.

Update article with the new information to be read in conjunction with the TNG generated report.

Rest ....

Repeat

 For the early years of the Parish records I don't expect to find any data other than Baptism, Marriage, and Burial, and little or nothing to join those records together. In later year there is potential for additional information, and further searches will be made in other Genealogical Sites, Tithe Apportionments, Directories, Voting registers, and Newspapers.

On a single page of the Abbotts Ann register, on page 5, refiring to Anno Domini 1596 baptisms.

There are 5 baptisms out of 21 on the page. That is nearly 25% of the baptisms are to the surname Hurst. This gives some indication of the presence of Hurst families in the community. Perhaps not 25% but not insignificant.

From the above it could be that the father Roger Hurst could be the same person which would make it four families of Hurst just in one page of the register.

I think I will organise the baptism records by father's Christian Name, below.

The records

Harry Hurst Church Warden of Abbotts Ann, near Andover, Hampshire, England, 1562

First noticed in the Parish Register manuscript, at the time when Elizabeth I was on the throne of England,

Richard Muckleton

 First seen on a page for 1562.

Presumably a respected member of the community, and possibly an elder. This may be the only reference to this person until his burial.  

However, going back to the title page, there appears to be a memorandum from September 1599.

The top of the page reads, This is the ???? Register booke of Abbotts Ann in County of Southampton.

 I have zoomed in on the text and highlighted Harry Hurst name, as church warden and build ... a pulpit. I think he approved the building of the pulpit but I can't make out who was the doner.

It does suggest that a Harry Hurst was a church warden both in 1562 and 1599, 37 years later.