Happy 4th of July, Washburn researcher! I am posting some of my recent research into the St. Peter's Parish Records of 16th century Bengeworth, Worcestershire, England, Washburn ancestry. Whether you're descended from John Washburn, of Bridgewater, Massachusetts, or William Washburn, of Hempstead, New York, these records pertain to your ancestry. I apologize for the length of this post, and I hope it goes through to all of you. The LDS microfilm of these records is in storage in a vault in the mountains near Salt Lake City, and took almost 2 months to get a copy of it sent to my local LDS Family History Center. I have tried to be as thorough as humanly possible in reading these records, but if anyone else on this list is more familiar with 16th century manuscript, I would certainly welcome someone else to re-read these entries and comment. St. Peter's Parish, Bengeworth, Worcestershire, England. LDS Microfilm #0383530. The pages in the St. Peter's Parish book appear, from the microfilm, to have been about 6" wide by 12" high, so quite a bit of information is on each page. The LDS Church, because of the age and condition of the book, has microfilmed each page at least twice, with different contrasting settings, to allow comparason and facilitate interpretation of the records. The book, at the time of filming, was evidently is a very poor state. Many pages were damaged, either by water or by mold, resulting in the writing being smeared, or the background being so dark the writing was indecipherable. The binding was almost non-existant, and some pages were missing parts that had broken off or worn off. Parish records began in 1538. The earliest pages are extremely difficult, indeed almost impossible to read on the microfilm. Roughly, there are about 2 pages per year. There are 3 types of records in the book for each year, labeled "Christenings," "Marriages" and "Buryings," generally in that order. The earliest Christenings list only the person being baptized, and not the names of the parents. Later records listed the name of the father. Beginning around 1560, most records listed the godfather and godmother, but many omitted the name of the father. Determining which was often difficult since in a great many cases the entire sentence was undecipherable, only parts of it. In addition to searching for Washburns, I had to contend with the name Watson. There appears to have been a Robert Watson having children in Bengeworth at the same time as John Washburn, and the two surnames look very similar in the old handwriting, especially since the Washburn surname was usually spelled more like "Wasbon," with the old- fashioned elongated "S," and the "b" looking very much like the "t." Sometimes the only deciding factor was whether the "s" was before or after the "b/t." My goal was to verify the several Washburn baptism, marriage, and burial dates I had seen in earlier publications and on the I.G.I., and to look in addition for entries under the Bushell, Whitehead, Tymbrell, and Taylor surnames. Several Taylor entries were found, which will be discussed later, but I found almost no Bushell, Whitehead or Tymbrell surnames. The I.G.I. has a marriage date for John and Emme Washbourne of 6 May 1516 in Bengeworth. This date is impossible, since the earliest records of St. Peter's Parish are in 1538. Perhaps they were married elsewhere. The esteemed E.A.B. Barnard, in "Some Notes on the Evesham Branch of the Washbourne Family," 1914, found the earliest Washburn entry as the 23 Feb. 1539 burial of Thomas Wasborne. I looked carefully through what I could read of the 1539 burials, but could not verify this record. I did find one burial for that date, which I read as: Ano 1639 Buriings The 23rd Daye of February was buried Thomas ___________. The surname, unfortunately, on the microfilm was completely unreadable, being in, what appears to be, a dark, moldy part of the page. By the entries, it is evident that this date was actually 23 Feb. 1539/40, it appearing in chronolical sequence after December 1639. The earliest Washburn record I found was under the heading "Ano 1542 Weddings" Item the 27th Daye of Aprill was married John Wasborn and Jone Bushell Barnard read the entry as "Item the 2ith daye of Apryll were married John Wasborne and Jone Bushell." The next entry Barnard found was the 12 June 1543 christening of Margarett Wasborne. Again, I found the entry, but the surname could not be deciphered at all: Anno Domini 1543 Item the 12th Daye of June was christened Margarett _________. (big black smear, completely unreadable) The next entry Barnard has is the 5 Oct. 1544 christening of Johanne Wasborne. I found this entry also, only partly readable: Ano 1544 Christenings Item the 5th Daye of October was Baptzd? Johanna Wasbone? Next, I found an entry that Barnard does not list in his book: Ano 1545 Weddings Item the 19th day of September were married William Wasbon and Agnes Foyun?/Foyer? The surname of Agnes is very uncertain. The next entry Barnard found was the 8 Jan. 1546 burial of John Washborne. This entry was especially hard to find: Ano 46 Buryings Item the 8th daie of January was buried John Wasborne The 1546 burials began with April, through the year to the next April, so this burial of John Washburn actually took place on 8 Jan. 1546/7, still part of 1546 according to the old calendar, but part of 1547 according to our current calendar. The burial of Emma Washbourne was very clear. Ano 1547 Buryings Item the xiiith Daye of Maye was buried Emma Wasbourne I also found, in 1548, another Washburn? entry that Barnard does not list in his book. I am not positive, however, that the surname was not Watson instead of Wasbon: Ano 1548 Christenings Item the 8th Daye of April was christened Elizabeth Wasbon The next entry I was searching for was the 31 Jan. 1551 christening of John Washburne, son of John and Joan Washburne. What I found was a little surprising: Ano Domine 1551 Christenings Item the last daye of January was christened John Franklon? alias Wasborne The next Washburn entry I found was for the year 1552: Ano 1552 Buryings Item the 25th November Jone Wasbarn was buried The next Washburn entry I found was for the year 1553: Ano 1553 Marryings The xxth Day of May was married Thomas Lyonwood? and Agnes Wasborne The surname of Thomas is very uncertain. It needs another pair of better trained eyes to read it. Records for the years 1554, 1555, and 1556 are sparse and very hard to read. In 1556 I found what appears to be another Washburn baptism. For this year only they are called "Baptisms" instead of "Christenings" in the heading. For this period, it appears that the name of the infant is first, with the godparents listed after, but no parents. Commas were inserted by me for clarification: Ano 1556 Baptisms Item the 26 of September Jane Wasborone, Jane Meyke?, Jane _______ godmothers, Notting? Ordway godfather. The names of the godparents are very uncertain and need someone else to look at to decipher. I found no 1556 baptism of a William Washburn as found in the I.G.I. Burial records in 1557 were water damanged and smeared, but I found the burial of Joan Washburn there: On the 4th Day of April was buried Jone Wasbourn The next Washburn entry was found in 1558: Buryings The 16th day of February Margaret Wasbourne The next entry I found for Washburns was in 1560: Buryings The xiith day of September Mary? Wasbourne alias Blifford?/Blissord? The marriage of John Washburn and Joan Whitehead in 1561 was fairly clear. The I.G.I. has the date as 8 May 1561, but I read it as 8 March 1561: Weddings codem ano Item the eighth daye of march John Wasborne and Joan Whithead were married The next Washburn entry I found was in 1563, and it was again very difficult to decipher: Ano Domine 1563 Christenings Item the xth Daie of March William son of ____ Wasborne and Agnes Ordway godmthr? and John Balox? godfather The name of William's father was very unreadable, but did not look like "John," and the surname of William's godfather is very uncertain. The next Washburn entry I found was in 1564: Ano 1564 Christenings The 8th of July Jone born of Jone Wasborne with Margory Mylnar? godmother and John Ingyman? godfather The surnames of the godparents are very uncertain. The records for the year 1565 were also partly water damanged and smeared, and almost unreadable, despite there being 3 attemts at microfilming them. The I.G.I. has the christening of our ancestor John Washburn (the 3rd) as 1 Aug. 1566. I searched diligently for this without finding it, but in 1567 I finally found the christening of our ancestor John Washburn: Anno Domine 1567 Christenings Item the first daie of April was bapt John Wasborne, John Norton godfather and Margaret Ordway gdm The next Washburn entry I found was in 1569, which was also partly damaged, and very difficult to read. This entry, however, is also one of those extracted by Bloom, and found on microfilm #0504458, in his extraction of some of the records of St. Peter's Parish, Bengeworth, known as "The Bloom Collection." Bloom transcribed it as: 1569, 19 Oct., John Bushell & Margt. Wasborne married I had less luck reading the record than Bloom: Weddings The xxth? Daie of October ___________ Bushel and Margarett Wasburne? The blank space consisted of 2 or 3 words, undecipherable, but none of the words looked to me like the name John. The next entry, in 1570, may have been the christening of a child of the above Margaret (Washburn) Bushell: Ano 1570 Christenings Item the xxiith of December Marian Bushell?, John Wasborne godfather, Marian Korodon? and _____ Horton? godmothers The godmother's names are very uncertain, and need to be read by better eyes. Again, commas were inserted by me for clarification. That is as far as I've been able to get in about 8 hours work with the microfilm. More to come. I'll be on vacation, doing some research in Canada for 3 weeks, beginning July 14th, so I may not be able to answer any comments for a while. John A. Maltby Redwood City, CA [email protected]