My ancestor, Richard WASTIE, had five children baptised at Eynsham between 1668 and 1679 (no mother's name recorded), before his death in 1681. The most likely looking marriage for Richard was to Joane GREENE in Stonesfield in 1666. However, I now have a copy of Richard's will (dated 1677) in which he refers to his "loving wife, Margery". There are no burial records at Eynsham for either Joane or Margery. I can find no record of a marriage between Richard WASTIE (or variants) and a Margery, but the Oxfordshire Archdeacon's Marriage Bond Index has an entry in 1665 for a Richard WASTELL (of Ensham) and a Margery BOWLES (of West Hanney). (Coincidentally, West Hanney is very close to East/West Hendred, where WASTIEs are recorded in the late 1500s and early 1600s.) What I would really like to ascertain is whether WASTELL is a mistranscription of WASTIE. The latter surname is quite rare - but is regularly mistranscribed as WASTY, WAISTIE, WACE, WASLIE etc. etc. Thanks for reading all this - any help/information/suggestions most gratefully received! Penny

----- Original Message ----- From: <PennyEves@aol.com> To: <oxfordshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2011 11:18 PM Subject: [OXF] A WASTIE/WASTELL Muddle! > My ancestor, Richard WASTIE, had five children baptised at Eynsham between > 1668 and 1679 (no mother's name recorded), before his death in 1681. The > most likely looking marriage for Richard was to Joane GREENE in > Stonesfield in 1666. > > However, I now have a copy of Richard's will (dated 1677) in which he > refers to his "loving wife, Margery". > > There are no burial records at Eynsham for either Joane or Margery. > > I can find no record of a marriage between Richard WASTIE (or variants) > and > a Margery, but the Oxfordshire Archdeacon's Marriage Bond Index has an > entry in 1665 for a Richard WASTELL (of Ensham) and a Margery BOWLES (of > West > Hanney). (Coincidentally, West Hanney is very close to East/West Hendred, > where WASTIEs are recorded in the late 1500s and early 1600s.) > > What I would really like to ascertain is whether WASTELL is a > mistranscription of WASTIE. The latter surname is quite rare - but is > regularly > mistranscribed as WASTY, WAISTIE, WACE, WASLIE etc. etc. Pennie - This has been an interesting chase! A bit of history (copied from the introduction to the current index at Oxfordshire History Centre) to the Archdeaconry Marriage bonds and Affadavits. An index of Oxford Archdeaconry marriage bonds and affadavits, 1634-36, 1665-1849, was compiled in about 1850 when the records were housed in the offices of Messrs. P. Walsh and G. Dayman, solicitors and archidiaconal registrars. This index listed the documents by years and within each year alphabetically by bridegroom's surname, giving just the names of both parties and their places of residence. Most of the original bonds & affadavits were depostited in the Bodleian library in 1920, with a continuation of the series to 1856, by Messrs. A. M. Franklin & Son, the firm of solicitors which succeeded to the practice of Walsh and Dayman. The original index was also deposited in the Bodleian by Messrs Franklin in 1980. It had been reproduced by the National Register of Archives in about 1960, and has been familiar to Oxfordshire genealogists in that form since then. The current index is described as a "cumulative index", comprising all the enries for both bridegrooms and brides, 1634-1849, contained in the 1850 index, and new entries for the afadavits of 1850-56 which had not previously been indexed. ... The cumulative index was compiled by Colin Harris & Miss Maude Wheeler. Reverting to your query (hoping to find WASTIE) - the index listed under WESTELL, WASTELL, WESTALL, WESTILL Richard 1665. I've looked at the bond. The name is mentioned three times. At the start of the bond it's WASTEE, later in the document the same, and signed WASTIE. Photographs sent separately. *However*, the bonds are all bound consecutively by bridegroom's name in years. At some stage, and possibly before the handwritten first index (1850), perhaps as an aide to assembling them alphabetically, the names of the parties were written on the backs of the bonds. And that's the stage where the WASTIE entry went wrong. The writing on the back is Wast - and then two generously loopy characters. They were intended to make WASTEE, as in the bond, but my theory is that that's the stage at which the WASTEL name was "born" for the document, and subsequently read as that. My theory rang true for the duty archivist, who's changed the master cumulative index accordingly. Wendy