Genealogy Forum UK

Is anyone up for a challenge?

As some of you may know, I am conducting a one name study on BRETTELL and variants. I have two distinct lines of Brettells who are well documented to a point. The thing is, I am trying to get these two points to merge.

We have the Brettells who are descended from Thomas Brettell, solicitor, who married Mary Henzey in 1748 and had children Thomas (marr Susannah Still), Susannah (m. John Fidkin), Sarah (unmarried), Richard (m. Mary Grazebrook), (Rev) Ananais, Benjamin (died as an infant) and Joseph (m. Ann Holden). The father, Thomas was the son of Richard brettell & Ann Clark and I can trace his line backwards to around the mid 1500s. These Brettells were mostly academics, solicitors and the like but they had financial investments in glassworks and mining interests

Then we have this other family who I believe Brettell Lane was named after. They were the owners of the coal mines. They were in cahoots with the previously mentioned Brettells but I can find no documented family connection.

Where I am at is this:
I have a family where the siblings are John, Thomas (likely but not proven - married Margeret Skidmore), Jeremiah (not married - died 1853 - I have his will), Mary (m. Thomas Tysoe), William (m. Martha), Benjamin (m. Eliz Jevons).

One of these siblings (or perhaps another I don't know about yet) had a son named Jeremiah, born, I know not when, but I have his will of 1776 which mentions his uncles Benjamin (chief inheritor) and William. The will also mentions John Marsh of Edgmond, Salop and Michael Orme and I have a vague idea how those two were connected family wise, besides the fact that they were partners in the mining interests with Benjamin and Jeremiah junior.

The will of Jeremiah senior does not mention Jeremiah junior although it does mention neices, daughters of sister Mary and her husband Thos Tysoe as well as the then living children of his brother William.

According to Jason Ellis who wrote the book on the Glassmakers of Stourbridge. Jeremiah junior petitioned the courts for his inheritence (the mines) just prior to 1774. This inheritence, according to Jason was from his uncle John. I don't know whether this is because Uncle John died in 1774 or if John had died earlier and Jeremiah came of age in 1774 and was then entitled to the inheritence.

Are you still with me?

I am looking for wills.

I have the 1706 will of John Brettell of Amblecott, Kingswinford where the connection to the Ormes and the Marsh family comes from. It mentions only one son, Dudley and no neices or nephews. This John's widow, Eleanor Brettell married Michael Orme who also had been widowed and his first wife had been Joanna Marsh, daur of John Marsh.

Benjamin Brettell of this second line of Brettells married Elizabeth Jevons in 1763 (it may have been a second marriage) and had two sons - Benjamin who married Mary Maria Currier and Thomas who married Penelope Antrobus Cartwright.

For starters, I would like to find the will of Benjamin senior. He was alive in 1776 when Jeremiah junior made his will and died. I feel that this will may be at Lichfield as this is where I found the wills of John (son Dudley) and Jeremiah senior.

Lichfield do not have any online database so I am stuck.

All suggestions or other ideas gratefully accepted.

Cheers
Mary Brettell in warm and sunny Brisbane, Aus
http://www.brettell.info

Mary someone on Cradley Links suggested you try Worcester Record Office or the on line NA, did you see that message? Linell.

this any good ?

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/us ... =985987053

extract

''In reply to your correspondent's query regarding Sarah and Mary Henzey, who married respectively Brettell and Dixon, I am of the opinion that they were sisters, for I find that John Henzey had by his wife, née White, three daughters, Frances, Mary and Sarah, and that Mary was married to Jonathan Dixon.

I may add that the Brettell family was of French origin, and that its history is given by Desbois under the name of De Breteuille. This family intermarried frequently with the Henzeys in England. Thus it appears from the Old Swinford parish register, that on the 15th of September, 1617, John Brettell married Mary Henzye, and the Joshua referred to in the coat of arms married Joan Brettell, who died in 1671.''

Mary,
I have a Mary Brettell married 24 Oct 1685 at Old Swinford, to Chistopher Batham (he was born 1658 in Wolverhampton) - she died 1728 and was buried at Old Swinford. Do you have any idea who she was - there are two possible baptisms at Old Swinford (1663 and 1666).
Steve

also found this from american archives

http://www.archive.org/stream/lifelette ... h_djvu.txt

''LIFE AND LETTERS
OF
HERBERT SPENCER.



CHAPTER I.
FAMILY HISTORY AND PARENTAGE.

WARDS the end of the sixteenth century Thomas and
Balthazar de Henzu or de Hennezel, with other Huguenots,
driven by religious persecution from Lorraine, to which
they seem to have migrated from Bohemia, took up their
abode near Stourbridge. Other immigrants, apparently
also of Bohemian origin and bearing the name afterwards
known as Hemus, appeared on the scene about the same
time. A century earlier, families of the name of Brettell,
connected seemingly with the de Breteuils of Normandy,
had settled in the same localty.

The neighbourhood of Stourbridge was a favourite resort
of foreign immigrants. Tradition has it that the famous
clay was discovered in the sixteenth century by wandering
glass-makers from Lorraine, and that the manufacture of
glass, begun about 1556, was introduced by Hungarians.
These traditions are in harmony with the supposition that
the Henzeys, Hemuses, &c., migrated from Bohemia to
Lorraine, and thence to England, taking with them their
skill in the manufacture of glass. They would naturally
settle in a locality where they could carry on to advantage
their native industry, especially if it had the additional
attraction of being the adopted home of other exiles like
themselves.

Marriages between families thus brought together would



/, i., chaps, i., ii., iii.-



/.//- 0/ f Herbert Spencer [CHAP. i.

be likely to take place. Unions of Brettells and Henzeys
are, in fact, recorded in the sixteenth century, and the
register of the parish of Oldswinford, within which Stour-
bridge has grown up, shows how common these unions
were in the two centuries following. One entry is of
special interest. In June, 1740, Joseph Bret tell, a farmer
of Wordsley, married Elizabeth Hemus. Joseph Brettell
and Elizabeth Hemus were Spencer's great-grandparents
on the mother's side. To him the chief interest in this
genealogy lay in the evidence it furnished of descent from
families who had resisted arbitrary authority. The non-
conformity of the Brettells, Henzeys, and Hemuses in
religious matters remained with them. Besides a daughter,
Jane, Joseph and Elizabeth Brettell had two sons, Jeremiah
and John, who became well-known Wesleyan ministers.
One Joseph Brettell, a relative of Jane Brettell's, was licensed
as a local preacher by John Wesley. A copy of a letter,
dated March 25, 1785, shows the founder of Wesleyanism to
have been a strict disciplinarian, who took care that his
adherents did not interpret non-conformity as liberty to
do as they pleased.

You think it your duty to call sinners to repentance. Make
full proof hereof and we shall rejoice to own you as a fellow
labourer.

Observe. You are not to ramble up and down, but to go
where I direct and there only.

(signed) JOHN WESLEY.

Jane Brettell married John Holmes, a widower, whom
Spencer remembered as a broken-down old man, whose
"strong sense of responsibility and obligation remained
dominant even when his faculties were failing." The verses
referred to in the Autobiography (i., 15) as exhibiting "some
small power of literary expression," caused John Holmes
searchings of heart as to the consistency of verse-making
with religious principles. " Some of the expressions, I
know, are very lively," he writes to his daughter by way of
apology, " though they may be over-looked, as poetry is
confined to words." About Mrs. Holmes it may be said
that, in judging of her character as portrayed by her grand- ''

I now have further information on the Brettells of Brettell Lane.

Mary Brettell did not marry Tyomas TYSOE - she married Thomas TYRER. The marriage and the three daughers births are in the IGI - and when I look again at the will of Jeremiah senior I can see how it immediately might look like TYSOE but it is definitely TYRER when you compare the handwriting to other parts of the will. I have now firmly established the prior generation - that is the parents of Jeremiah senior, Mary, John and, althought I can not find a birth entry for either of them, Benjamin Brettell senior (who married Eliz Jevons) and his brother William who married Martha.

Their parents were John Brettell and Mary. I found their marriage.
14 May 1698
Johannes Brittell, de Brittell in comitatu Staffordiae, et Maria Marsh ex hac parochia, Matrimonio Conjangebantur
John Brettell of Brettell in County Staffordshire, and Maria Marsh of this parish, united in marriage.

Benjamin Brettell was in partnership with John Marsh and Michael Orme - did I explain the ORME connection earlier?

I now need to find out who John Brettell who married Mary Marsh was

One step at a time ...

Cheers

Mary B.

I forgot to mention I have meet an extremely helpful fellow who works as a volunteer at the Worcester Records Office. He has given me a list of heaps of Brettell wills that I did not know existed. I am now in "Will Heaven". I now need to figure out which ones I need first and how to get hold of them from WRO (without going bankrupt ).

Cheers

MaryB.

Hi Peter D,

I am just getting back into this after being snowed under with work ... I find work can really interfere with family history research

Thanks for transcribing and posting the Herbert Spencer info and the other postings from ancient genealogy writings . I have pondered over these and they can take me just so far... There is quite a bit about BRETTELL on "Google Books" - I am really glad to have this resource available.

Cheers

MaryB.

It's me again... Still catching up.

Regarding Mary Brettell who marr at Old Swinford, to Chistopher Batham (he was born 1658 in Wolverhampton) - she died 1728 and was buried at Old Swinford. Do you have any idea who she was - there are two possible baptisms at Old Swinford (1663 and 1666).
I found the same entries.

Mary christened 25 April 1663 was the daughter of Samuel and belongs (I believe) in this family:
Samuel b 1660
Joshua b 1665
Jonathan b 1667
Elizabeth b 1660
Sarah b. 1673.
John b 1670 (I have his will but it mentions only his wife Elinor and son Dudley)
These are part of the Brettell Lane clan. John's widow, Elinor remarried Michael Orme who was in partnership with Benjamin Brettell.

The other mary you mentioned would be the daughter of Richard christened Old Swinford 10November 1666. At this stage I do not know which Richard this might have been. I have a number of Richards in my database and they are all sons of Richards or Roberts but they lead to dead ends.

There was also a mary Brettell born 1663 to William Brettell & Sarah Bendy. She was christened at Kingswinford 19 Dec 1663. She seems to be part of the Romsley Clan.

Cheers

Mary B.

Is this still a Brick Wall?
Or do you still need help with it?

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