Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Calvert Family of York

Background
My 4xgreat-grandmother Ann Calvert was married to John Wright in 1829 and lived in Dringhouses, a parish on the South-West border of York. From the 1841-1871 censuses, I knew that she was also born there around about 1803. In 1826 she had an illegitimate child, George Calvert, and had 7 children with her husband John between 1831 and 1844. I also knew that prior to her marriage she had lived in the parish of Bishophill Senior (next to Dringhouses, closer to York) as this was stated on the marriage entry and the IGI entry for her bastard son George.

The Calvert Family
The key in tracing Ann Calvert was to find her baptism. I searched the corresponding parish records (Bishophill Jnr, Bishophill Snr and Holy Trinity Micklegate - HTMK) and found a baptism for Ann Calvert:


"Ann Calvert, born Wednesday 22nd June 1803, baptised Sunday June 26th 1803, daughter of Mathew Calvert, labourer at Dringhouses, son of William Calvert labourer at Acomb, and Elizabeth his wife, descent unknown."

This seems to be the correct entry as there is no other Ann Calvert baptised at the right time in these parishes. There was however, an Ann Calvert baptised in April 1803 in the parish of Holy Trinity King's Court, York, who was the daughter of a James Calvert and Ann Bland. I found this entry when doing a sweep for all Ann Calverts born 1798-1808 in Yorkshire on the IGI index. This is unlikely to be the right Ann Calvert as the parish is not a neighboring one although it is in York. However, I would really like to have one more connecting piece of evidence to be completely sure that the HTMK baptism is the correct Ann to follow. As she married pre-1837 I won't be able to get this from her marriage certificate, and her marriage church entry did not mention her father's name. I shall have to come up with some other secondary confirmation, ideally with her married name Ann Wright connected to either Mathew or Elizabeth Calvert. Perhaps Ann was the informant of death of her parents?


Nevertheless, following the Ann Calvert from the HTMK baptism registers, I found four elder siblings of Ann also baptised. They were, William (1791), Ann (1795), John (1796) and George (1800). Of these, Ann the elder does not appear in the IGI. I'm hoping that my note-taking from 10 years ago hasn't failed me and that she really was in the registers! All of them described their father as Mathew Calvert (a labourer) son of William Calvert (a labourer), except for the eldest child Willliam when both are recorded as 'farmers'. For all children, Mathew's wife Elizabeth is described as 'descent unknown'.


I haven't managed to find too much extra information from parish records, though I have sporadically looked through them. I did do an IGI search for the baptism of a Matthew Calvert son of William which produced one possible match - 25 Feb 1757 in Saint Mary Bishophill Junior. This Calvert line will need much more systematic research of parish registers and other records in the future to get further.

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