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.

John Ridley in Pay Lists - WO12

When I was at the National Archives many years ago I looked through the Pay Lists for the 7th Regiment of Foot. I knew from the pension records that John Ridley had served 16 Years, 10 months and he was discharged on Oct 21 1821. I ordered a series of pay list that for the 7th Regiment starting in the 1804 -1806 time period. (WO12/2542) I was thumbing through the actual pay list books that the regiment carried with them. I found in the list where John Ridley first appears. It was on May 10 1805 the he joined the 7th regiment of foot, he had volunteered from the militia. Many of the men on the list had joined from the militia about the same time he did. His pay due was 15 shilling. There is a column on the preprinted form that says ‘in lieu of Beer’ He received his pay in beer. Everyone on the page received some of their wages in lieu of beer. The list is dated June 7, 1805 at Wakefield. It appears that he joined the regiment while it was at Wakefield, Yorkshire.
I followed the movements of the regiment through the pay lists. In 1808 the regiment went to Nova Scotia. It was there most of the year. In early 1809 I find a list of men who were killed in the siege of Martinique, 38 privates and 7 officers. Over the next five years the regiment was in Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and France. In 1815 it says they camped near Paris. The 7th was in many battles and suffered many casualties. John Ridley was wounded twice.

Scottish Records Online - 1797 Horse Tax

It has been about three years since I put a transcription of the 1797 horse tax for the Pairh of Urr in Kirkcudbright on a website. Today I have discovered that the horse tax lists for the entire country have been digitized and is now online. There is no searchable index. The images of the lists can be downloaded or saved. The lists are organized by county and then by parish. The name of the man who had the horses is recorded as well as how many horses he had and how much tax was paid. It also records the name of the land or estate that he occupied. Typically parish registers do not record the estate a family lived on. The horse tax is one source of many that one would put on his or her list to look at while at the National Archives. Also on this website is a record of all land owners in Scotland in 1872. I look forward to more records being put online. The guide for these little known or used records is the book, Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors.
At ScotlandPeoples website the probate indexes are available to 1900. They just put Catholic records on their website. The price to access these records is very reasonable and sometimes free. The record that I think would be of most value will be the militia lists created prior to and during the Napoleonic Wars (1800 to 1815). Kirkcudbrightshire has milita records that cover most parishes in the county. I have put the parish of Urr militia records online

Flory's in Tattingstone

I have been attempting to assemble some of the Flory families in the Clopton and Burgh area of Suffolk. There are just enough of them to cause some confusion since there were 7 brothers marrying in the mid 1700’s, namely ; Richard, John, Isaac, William, Benjamin, Jonathan, and Thomas. As the generations continued they had a tendency to use the same given names. I have identified 27 of their children. There could be as many as 15 more that I have not found yet, because the parish records provide little identifying information. Much of the research is based on the assertion that families lived in the same parish for many generations. When a family moved some parishes or miles from where they were born it becomes a bit more difficult to identify them. I found a marriage of Jonathan Flory to Elizabeth Smyth in 1778 in Tattingstone. This marriage record states that Jonathan is from Clopton. They went on to have 10 children in Clopton. Tattingstone is about 10 miles south of Clopton on the other side of Ipswich. Susan the sister of Jonathan died in Tattingstone in 1795. I know this for certain because in a rare instance of record keeping the burial record records her father’s name and mothers maiden name; Jonathan Flory and Mary Abbot. I found 2 families in Tattiingstone that could have a connection to Clopton. There was a Thomas born about 1752 and one about 1757. Their children were born between 1786 and 1802. There is a headstone and will for the Thomas that died in 1812. It is the other Thomas that died in 1810 at the age of 53 that appears to have a connection to Clopton. His birth year of 1757 fits with being a son of Jonathan Flory and Mary Abbot. He married Sarah Potter in 1784 in Tattingstone. He named a daughter Ursula. The fact that two other family members have been identified there and his birth year fits; and Ursula is a family name points to him being from Clopton. The parish registers of Clopton has a Thomas born in 1755 and 1758. It appears that Sarah Bobbit married the Thomas born in 1755 who is the son of Benjamin and Elizabeth Flory. As I looked through the Bishop Transcripts of Tattingstone I seen a number of Abbots’s, so it appears that Mary Abbot may have been the connection to Tattingstone to begin with.

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.