Military Pay Lists

Findmypast some months ago put online an index of people in the 1861 military pay lists. 245,000 men are listed. This is just a snap shot of who was in the military at that particular time. I was missing a few people between the 1851 and 1861 census. I was wondering what happened to David Scoggins who was born in 1833 in Badingham. He was in the 1851 census and then he just vanished. There is a David Scoggins listed as being in Hazaribagh East Indies in the 77th foot (East Middlesex Regiment) Out of all the military records online there is no mention of him. Next time I make it to the National Archives I will need to trace him through the pay list to see when he joined and when and how he left the military. The pay list are big bulky books that each regiment carried around with them. There not on microfilm. If you want a detailed view of where a military man went in his career then the pay lists will tell you. I sure hope they put some pay list online from the Napoleonic wars. A lot of men disappeared and if they died in the wars the only mention you may find of them will be in the pay lists. There is also a possibility that his birthplace will be found in the lists which would confirm his identity. There are pay lists for every regiment starting in about 1730.

Scoggins Civil Registration Marriages 1837 to 1851

Using FREEBMD civil registration indexes I have located 53 Scoggins, Scroggins marriages between 1837 and 1851. To find all the various spellings I used a wildcard. In the search box I put (scog*) The star or asterisk placed at the end picks up all the letters after. It may be surprising to know that any surname that starts with Scog is going to be a variant of Scoggins, Scoging, etc.
Scoggins and its various spellings are not very common, so it is possible to sort through them. Of the 53 marriages which took place 23 took place in Suffolk or 40%. 38 of the 53 can be traced back into Suffolk through research between 1775 and 1851. This means 75% of them have Suffolk roots. The remaining 25% or 15 marriages are scattered in 7 other counties with London area having 5. I have also noticed that some Northern England Scoggins have unique variants of their own, i.e. Skoggins, Scigens
On FREEBMD it is possible to add postems to each entry, so I have placed a postem for 28 of the 53 marriages. The postem I have included includes a transcription of the marriage record excluding the witnesses as I ran out of space as only 250 characters are allowed. If you have a marriage record, transcribe it and create a postem.
I have also found a marriage church record of William Bye Scogings in 1849 that is not in the civil registration indexes. I found that marriage on ancestry.com London marriage records.

Scoggin Family in 1600 Suffolk England

I was looking at the new Suffolk Burial index that came out this past year (2009) and found some new burials for Scoggins in the 1600's. The last update for this index was in 2004. There are now over a million names in the index. It can be purchased from the Suffolk Family History Society. I found some Scogging's in the parish of Shimpling in West Suffolk. Where is Shimpling? It is some miles south of Bury St Edmunds. I have access to some parish register transcripts and found a number of children who were christened there starting in 1663. Robert and Grisiel Scogging had 6 children between 1663 and 1677. It appears that Grisiel died as Robert and Bridget continue on where Robert and Grisiel left off. Robert and Bridget had 4 children between 1682 and 1688. There is a Robert who was born in 1668 who could very well be the Robert of Helmingham. Helmingham is about 15 miles east of Shimpling. The last record of any Scogging in Shimpling is in 1708 when Robert died. I assume that this Robert is the father of the family, but I do not know for sure. It appears that the children of this family moved to other parishes. Is it the remnants of this family that we find in East Suffolk? The east Suffolk Scoggins do not have the given names of Bridget or Grisiel as found in Shimplling. None of the children were named Grisiel or Bridget, just Robert's spouses.

Lord or Loyd or Lloyd in Hemingstone

I have been looking at records for Elizabeth Loyd (1756-1835) daughter of Richard Lord and Deborah Hagar. Elizabeth married Thomas Scoging in Otley, Suffolk County, England in 1776. One clue in the marriage record is that Richard Loyd was a witness. Soon after the marriage they settle in Badingham. The IGI has Loyd as a variant of Lloyd, but it appears that it in not so in all cases. I have studied the parish registers of the Lord family of Hemingstone. I discovered that the surname for the children who were born in the 1750's and 1760's was spelled Lord. The children I found who were marrying in the 1770's was spelled Loyd. Richard Loyd was a witness to many marriages in this time period. In one instances Loyd and Lord is written on the same certificate. In the 1790's and forward Loyd is no longer used. It was in a 20 year time period that the surname Loyd was used in Hemingstone. Further clues: There are no other Loyd or Lord families in the vicinity. A couple of the Scoging children settled in Hemingstone. Thomas Scoging snd Elizabeth Lord named a child Deborah and Richard.
Richard Lord died in 1803 at the age of 81 in Hemingstone. Richrd Lord Junior (1752-1801) died at the age of 48 in Hemingstone. No wills or headstones can be found for the family.
I also discovered a few more Mormon handcart pioneers that descend through the line of Richard Lord (1752-1801) who is the brother of Elizabeth Lord (1756-1835) Richard had a son named Rueben. Reuben is the father of Harriet (1817-1896) and Charles (1823-1857) who were Mormon hand cart pioneers. William Bye Scogings (1822-1886), hand cart pioneer, is a second cousin to Charles and Harriet Lord. Harriet (1817-1896) came to Utah in the 1850's with her husband, Edmund Kindred and family. They settled in Springville, Utah.
I have created a separate gedcom on my website for all the children who descend from Richard Lord and Deborah Hagar of Hemingstone.

The Will of Thomas Scoging (1709-1788)

Some weeks ago I found the will of Thomas Scoging in the Norwich Consistory Court. Prior to 1858 people had a variety of options of which court to prove their will. As these will's are indexed and put on line it will be much easier to find them. I found a reference to Thomas's will on ancestry.com.

"first I give and devise unto my son Thomas Scoging All that piece of Ground situate in Badingham aforesaid with Cottage there upon lately built.... Also I give and devise unto James Aldous of Badingham aforesaid Labourer All that piece of Ground situate in Badingham aforesaid with a Cottge thereupon lately built.... First I give and bequeath unto my son Robert Scoging and to my Daughter Elizabeth Rye (wife of Richard Rye now or late of Swilland in the said County Yeoman the sum of five shillings each....hereof I do give and bequeath the same unto my Sons William Scoging and the said Thomas Scoging share and share alike.... appoint my said Sons William Scoging and Thomas Scoging Executors of this my last Will and Testament... I have hereunto set my hand and Seal this fourth day of May in the year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty Five."

It appears that Thomas was what would be termed an 'owner-occupier' or freehold property owner. From the generation of Thomas to his children and grandchildren times were changing. This change brought hardships on the working class. Two of the major changes were; first, The labourers were no longer living-in with farmers, and they were hired as need be; second, enclosure or the loss of common rights denied them firewood, and the animals shared in common. This met that most relied on parish relief many months every year. To compound the problem there was inflation. The labourer force was increasing and the population as a whole. Many in the following generations were classified as labourers. No probate records can be found for William, Thomas, or Robert. An excellent book pertaining to eighteenth century England is English Society in the Eighteenth Century, Second Edition (The Penguin Social History of Britain) I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about England in 1700's.
As I read this book it appears that the same problems that plagued their society still exist in our society and will always exist, i.e., inflation, unemployment, technology advances displacing workers, corruption, political scandals, crime, etc.

Suffolk and Galloway drovers 1600's 1700's

Sometime ago a Scoggins cousin told me that they had Scottish customs in their family, and it was thought that they originally came from Galloway. (Galloway refers to Wigtown, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries counties in Scotland) I have consulted some books listed below that verifies the connection between Galloway and Suffolk. It is reasonable to assume that some of the Scotch would have settled in Suffolk.

On the agriculture of Suffolk By William Raynbird, Hugh Raynbird, 1849 "Culley, in his work ' On Live Stock,' observes, that the Suffolk duns are nothing more than a variety of the Galloway breed, originating in the intercourse that has long subsisted between the Scotch drovers of Galloway cattle and the Suffolk and Norfolk graziers who feed them. This opinion is, I think, incorrect; the breeds agree in nothing else except in their small size and being polled."

Coddenham and Badingham are pointed out as dairy centers. The 20 mile by 12 mile area is where the Scoggins are found, and it provides a reason that a branch of the family settled in Badingham in the 1770's.

General view of the agriculture of the county of Suffolk: drawn up for the ..., 1797 "The country, which is more peculiarly, but not exclusively, the seat of the dairies, is marked out by the parishes of Codenham, Ashbocking, Otley, Charlsfield, Lethei ingham, Hatcheston, Parham, Framlingham, Cransford, Bruisyard, Badingham, Sibton, Heveningham, Cookly, Linstead, Metfield, Wethersdale, Fressingfield, Wingfield, Hoxne, Brome, Thrandeston, Geslingham, Tenningham, Westrop, Wyverston, Gipping, Stonham, Creting; and again to Codenham, with all the places within, being a tract of country of 20 miles by 12. The limits cannot be exact, for this breed of cows spreads over the whole county; but this space must be more peculiarly considered as their head-quarters."

This points to a place where further research can be conducted. The first Scoggins to be found in the parish registers is in Helmingham in 1694. Helmingham is next to Otley parish and near Coddenham. How many Scoggins families came from Scotland? Was the surname spelled the same? Were the Scoggins drovers?

Wesleyan Methodist Church Records

I have made progress in locating Sarah Scoging (1795-1842). She married Clement Rogers in 1817 in Earl Soham. Earl Soham is about five miles from Badingham where Sarah was born. The connection to her parents William and Ann Scoggin could appear to be in question since she died before the census of 1851 when birthplaces were recorded. I have searched through many online trees where she is recorded. There is one that connects her to Clement Rogers. Some of the trees consider her to be Rebecca Scoggins who was born in this time period. Rebecca is not in the parish registers of the area. She married a James Nichols in Bruisyard in 1823. They are definitely two distinct woman. A search of the IGI shows 34 entries for the 10 children Clement and Sarah are known to have had. A few of the entries note that the baptisms came from a Wesleyan Methodist church in Framlingham. I identified the registers in the library catalogue. I went through the baptismal register very carefully and to my surprise I found that the registers were quite detailed. In the 1820’s and 1830’s there is a preprinted form that allows for the entry of the parents of the mother of a child. Her parents were recorded as William and Ann Scoggins. This leaves little doubt that she is indeed the daughter of Willliam and Ann Scoggins of Badingham. There is a monumental inscription in the Earl Soham Church Yard that has been transcribed as follows; Sarah wife of Clem Rogers 21 Feb 1842, age 42. The burial register notes her age as 47. Clement Rogers was a cordwainer, shoemaker, and farmer of 42 acres. When he died in 1877 he left an estate valued at £300. The baptism records of the Wesleyan Methodist Church yielded much more than I would expect to find in a Church of England record and even civil registration after 1837. It may not be apparent in the IGI that you are looking at a Church record other than the Church of England.

Suffolk Ancestors

Thomas Scoggins and Elizabeth Lloyd had 11 children between 1777 and 1800. I have just discovered the marriage of Mary their daughter who was born in 1796. Mary was the last one to be discovered. I have accounted for all eleven children now. Ten of them survived to adulthood and married. William I believe was killed in the Napoleon Wars in 1815. Their average age at death was 77 years. Elizabeth and Deborah lived to near 100 years old. It must be assume that our ancestors lived to old age unless we can prove otherwise. They all remained in East Suffolk except for Richard who lived in London. The Ipswich Journal reported the death of Deborah. Some of the facts do not jive with what the records say.

Ipswich Journal; Feb 8, 1889: Whitton: Death of a Centenarian. Last week there died at Whitton an old lady who had reached the patriorenial age of 100 years, named Deborah Baker. The widow of Thomas Baker, a carpenter of Claydon. Mrs Baker who was the daughter of a small farmer, named Scogings was born at Badingham in November, 1788 and was the youngest of thirteen children. The old lady had been a widow 45 years and had eleven children of whom only three survive. Mrs. Baker retained the use of her faculties to within a few weeks of her death. and could also sew, &c, three months ago. She was a small woman active very simple in her manners and mode of living, and it is said a total abstainer for many years. Mrs. Baker was related to Mrs. Edwards, of Baylham, who has attained her hundredth year.

The most important clues in identifying them came from the census records. The fact that Scoggins is a relatively uncommon name and they lived to the census years when the parish of birth was recorded became invaluable clues. English research is a challenge in that death records do not record that parents names. Marriage records after 1837 only record the father’s name and those before 1837 only record witnesses. Mary mentioned above married in Little Blakenham in 1816. That is about 20 miles from Badingham. It is only three miles from where her two other sisters, Deborah and Elizabeth married and lived. A witness at Mary’s marriage was Robert Fenning. Robert Fenning is the husband of Elizabeth. It becomes obvious that we must search for clues in every record we can find. Relying on parish registers alone is not enough.

Scoggins, Scogings England Probate

Due to the uncommon surname of ‘Scoggins’ I have been able to extract every person with that surname and its variants from the England national probate index which started in 1858. Prior to 1858 it is necessary to check various court records to find a probate record. The different spellings in the index are as follows: Scoggin, Scoggins, Scogging, Scoging, Scoggings, Scogings, Scroggins. Scoggins is the most common spelling. From 1858 to 1900 there were 15 probated records; of those, I can connect 7 of those people to my tree. From 1900 to 1945 there are 50 probated records. The most consistent family to hand down wealth in my tree was that of Isaac Scoggins who was a farmer in Laxfield. He had numerous children and they can be found in the probate indexes. The most useful probate record was that of Jarvis Scoggins who died in 1866. He never had children so he left his property to other relatives which are named in the will. The index entry reads as follows: “The Will of Jarvis Scoggins late Friston in the County of Suffolk Yeoman deceased who died on the 10 January 1866 at Friston aforesaid was proved at Ipswich by the oaths of Isaac Scoggins of Laxfield in the county aforesaid Farmer the Brother Jarvis Scoggins of Laxfield aforesaid Farmer the Nephew and Isaac Crisp of Friston aforesaid Fisherman the Executors, Effects under £200.” If you want to know if your Scoggins ancestor is in the index email me.