Richard Broomfield
Started 13 Nov 2022 -
The first task is to establish the number of Richard Broomfield's there are in the county of Hampshire, to help delineate between the records of one Richard Broomfield and another. Normally I would us my set of CDs from the Hampshire Genealogical Society. Transcriptions of Baptism, Marriage, and Death indexes.
Those records are now available on FindMyPast. So, online instead of by CD. However, I still keep my subscription going with HGS, and even do some transcribing for them.
I searched for Richard Broomfield records in Hampshire. Setting the approximate year of birth to 1770 reduced the list to 28.
Then I need somewhere to put all the information I find, so I start a One Name Study in respect of the surname Broomfield in the TNG database.
Normally, a person is added to the database, and then a family is created. Records are added to the person. However, in this instance, it is a case of adding a person for each instance of record, until there is sufficient evidence that it is the same person. Then those same people on the database are merged
For instance, there are two marriages recorded for a Richard Broomfield of Lyndhurst. One on 25 December 1820 to Sarah Ochelford and another to Mary Collins on 16 April 1831. The record has a note that Mary has been previously married but does not recall a name. There is sufficient time between the two marriages that it is the potentially the same Richard Broomfield in each, but nothing to confirm this. Hence a new record for each person as if separate, until proven otherwise.
I should point out at this stage that I do not know where this article is going. It may be the ramblings of a mad, eccentric, old man. Or it may come to a logical conclusion. It is written as the research progresses not as a report of the findings. This will therefore not be to everyone's taste.
Onward.
There are two entries for Richard Broomfield in the 1841 Census, both with a probable wife of Mary. The 1841 Census did not record relationship to the head of the family.
In one of the entries Richard Broomfield is a Farmer. His age may be 65 looking at the image, and this is recorded in the transcription, which gives an estimated birth year of 1776.
With him are Mary, aged 50, and two Female Servants, Eliza Pierce, aged 25, and Eliza Broomfield, aged 15. Both of the servants could possibly be part of the extended family. It is also possible that Eliza Broomfield is a daughter, but I would have expected the enumerator to record family before adding servants or boarders.
At the end of the previous page the location is recorded as Rose Cottage. It is unclear if Richard Broomfield is living in the same building, or a nearby property. It was not unusual for multiple occupancy of a single residence. Although Thomas Figgins is recorded as being of Independant Means, so perhaps an adjacent building is more likely, despite one transcription for the Richard Broomfield recording his address as Rose Cottage Lyndhurst.
Going back to the page with Richard Broomfield on it. Firstly, there are the column headings and the 'Parish or Township', recorded as Lyndhurst. This is in the County of Southamptonshire or Hampshire, where the date determines how the county was named.
There is a column headed inhabited, where each separate building or residence is marked with a stroke / or a one 1. Ringed in pink.
The double strokes //, ringed in green, normally indicate a change in family. In this instance the // is followed by a / which suggests to me one family to one building. The count of the / equates to the total building at the bottom of the page. (Not shown)
The item ringed in red is 1U, which I interpret as one uninhabited building between Richard Broomfield, and the preceding household, John Swift, 70, Farmer.
At the top of the page is according to the Ancestry transcription Charles Birenfield and his family. I wonder, given the location of the family and the similarity of the script of surname between Charles and Richard, that they are in fact both Broomfield. Noting of course that at the time of this Census, all the writing was done by the enumerator.
This is just one of the 1841 Census entries in Hampshire for a Richard Broomfield.
