>some just disappear from the Winslow records. I've assumed that the sons >were sent off to St Albans for their education, St Albans seems likely, though you might get a high flier attending Cambridge (one in the very early 1500s from Haddenham, similar yeoman's grandson, with a father who was man of business to the Wartons of Winchendon, entirley without apparent training, just natural talent/deviousness. > as it's too early for >any of the North Bucks schools, but I wonder if anyone has any other >suggestions, and if there's any significance in the use of the plural >scholas. I have always assumed that this refers to classes running in parallel, of (say) musical education plus academic education + theological education. Rather as you say 'at his lessons' rather than at his lesson, or studies, not study. One thing you do notice in studying slightly later manorial/local records is that certain families retained a grip on the low level legal affairs of the village. For instance, the Brangwins in Haddenmham were the writers of wills through several generations, and hired themselves out to do the same for other places, within (so far) a ten mile radius. And one local schoolmaster, 1810ish, was responsible for a very complicated legal fiddle/scheme which regained the ownership for a friend and cousin of his of a property which had been legally and properly sold by his maternal aunt when he was a small boy. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

If onlly my ancestor William Eeles & his older brothers had had his advice in 1811, when their father Robert died, leaving several hundred pounds in cash plus land, houses, a butchers business, cattle, crops, a dairy, etc, in Oakley & Waddesdon. William & his two older brothers ended up poor (last news I have of William was in Winslow workhouse in 1851), while his fathers older brother Benjamin, executor of the will, died in 1831 apparently in possession of the lot. Left a family trust which kept paying out until the 1960s, & was wound up at the beginning of the 1980s & the assets distributed (£30-something per head) when there were too few assets left for the solicitors administering it to profit from flogging them off to pay their fees (they'd had all the income for many years previously). Note to makers of wills: never, ever, set up a complicated family trust with multiple conditional beneficiaries. The lawyers will take all the money. None of Roberts descendants benefited from Benjamins will, although a fair proportion of his estate had been left to him by Robert, & he'd been entrusted with the upbringing of the boys & the support of Roberts widow. I wonder what happened to the assets supposed to be inherited by the boys when they reached 21? As far as I can see Benjamin kept it all. He was described as "Gent." at his death, although the family had never been more than "Yeoman" before, as far as I've found. Buying social advancement with his nephews stolen inheritance? Paul Eve McLaughlin wrote: >And one local schoolmaster, 1810ish, was responsible for a very >complicated legal fiddle/scheme which regained the ownership for a >friend and cousin of his of a property which had been legally and >properly sold by his maternal aunt when he was a small boy. > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.3 - Release Date: 15/03/05