Genealogy Chat

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Anyone got any experience of settlement disputes? My husband and I had fun this morning deciphering firstly the Justices' casebook and then the Quarter Sessions book, involving two separate parishes, concerning my gt gt grandfather and family. Apparently they were sent from one parish(Stoke Poges) to another(Aston, Oxon) and the court ruling appeared to be that they shouldn't have been sent at all, but that the parish they were sent from didn't have any responsibility for them either! v. confused. nell

You are born with your father's place of settlement, unless you are illegitimate, in which case your place of settlement is where you are born. But, if you worked as a servant to one master for more than a year, or rented property to a certain value, you could change your settlement. The examination was designed to determine where your place of settlement was, but the examining JP would probably have a vested interest in your removal and you could be batted back and forth between parishes. One ancestor saw fit to state that his linen was washed during harvest time! - presumably to demonstrate that he was hired for the year and was not a casual labourer. Brenda

Thanks Brenda. My query is about this specific case - I have my gggrandfather Robert saying he paid rent and rates for a house which was originally his father- in-law's, in Farnham. Then when his father-in-law came back, Robert, wife and 3 girls all moved to Stoke. They were "removed and conveyed" to Aston (which I think is Aston Rowant and I think Robert was born there, but no definite info yet). Then Aston's churchwardens, overseers and inhabitants protested and the justices of the peace said that the family shouldn't have been moved, that Stoke weren't chargable for them, and that chargability wasn't proved. So what I want to know is why were they moved in the first place, especially as it seems they stayed in Stoke Poges for the rest of their lives. nell

Hi Nell, Now don't quote me on this, but by the 19th century I believe it wasn't legal for a parish to remove someone, and their family, unless they'd already become chargeable. Maybe the CWs and OSs at Stoke Poges thought that he MIGHT become chargeable to the parish and decided to examine him (and get rid of him) before he did. During the examination they came to the conclusion that his legal place of settlement was Aston, so off he went. Not surprisingly, the Aston lot kicked up a fuss because Stoke shouldn't have moved him on unless he'd already become chargeable. A lot of people were moved on 'just in case'. The JP agreed and Robert went back to Stoke, but with Stoke winning the argument that he wasn't their legal inhabitant. Cass

Cass Thank you for your thoughts. It seems nobody wanted him to be "chargable"! Nell

I've just realised an added irony. Robert Chowns had 7 daughters, the youngest one, Ann, married John Smoothy, who later became an overseer of the poor/parish beadle! Ann and John were my great-grandparents. It was finding their names in the Family Bible that got me started on this genealogy malarky! nell