Ancestry Route 1 Pre 1700

Nicholas & Elizabeth Cowling
My 10X GGP born in Elizabeth I’s reign

My 11XGGF, John of Penkestle, married a woman called Elizabeth some time between around the 1540’s.  They are likely parents of John b1549, Jane b1555, Stephen b1557, Bennet b1560, Maryn b1563, Nicholas b1568, Thomas b1571 and Orphew b1573. Elizabeth died in 1573, probably in childbirth (Orphew). They also had at least 1 child who died in infancy, Pasca (d1570) and she may have been Nicholas’ twin sister.  All the children were born in St Neot parish where Penkestle Farm was located.

John of Penkestle may have relied on his eldest daughters Jane (13) and Maryn (10) to raise 3 year old Orphew, 4 year old Thomas and my 10X GGF, 5 year old Nicholas, even as they grieved the loss of their mother. I have no record of Jane marrying but a Maryn married Cleere Gourd in 1584.  More of them later…

My 10X GGF, Nicholas, married Elizabeth Cowling in 1603 in St Teath.  They are parents to my 9X GGF William (b1608)  who married Mary Coyler in 1629.  

As with Nicholas’ own mother, his 1st wife Elizabeth Cowling dies in 1621, shortly after giving birth to Elizabeth in 1620 who also dies in 1621.  They lost several other children – Edward 1606, Edward 1612, possibly Jone or Jane too.

After Elizabeth Cowling died in 1621, Nicholas was left with William (b1608) who was old enough to look after himself, Charis (b1618) and Thomasine (b1620) who were still too young to be left (aged 3 and 1 respectively).  So Nicholas married Grace Pulpe in 1625 in St Neot.  She was considerably younger than him – by now he was 63, she was 22.  She is cited as a widow in 1659, which indicates Nicholas’ likely time of death.  Grace had 2 children from Nicholas – Thomas (b1625) and John (b1626). 

William & Mary Coyler
9X GGP living through Civil War

William had to adapt to the arrival of his father’s very young wife, Grace, who was only 9 years older than him, and in addition, the arrive of 2 new half siblings, both male.  

William’s life would have revolved around the farmstead where his father held a 3-lives lease, which William was destined to inherit.  He cemented his right of tenancy in Penkestle and may have expanded his or the family’s share of the property by marrying Mary Coyler of Coyler’s Tennement, Penkestle, in 1629 (in St Neot Church).  William then held a 3 lives lease with 1 life remaining after his own, for a portion of living space and land at the property which he then handed down to his son John (b1629), but he may also have appended a new 3 lives lease to the property through his marriage to Mary.  Click on William’s records to see a map of the farmsteads known to be occupied by Sweet ancestors.

William appears in Hearth Returns in 1664, alongside his son John, but there appear to be no protestation returns (1641) for his generation in St Neot.  The Fowey Coastal Sweets, living in Sweetshouse, Redmoor, near Withiel, found themselves right in the heart of an infamous Civil War battle, written about by Daphne De Maurier in the King’s General.  Fighting came close to the Fowey Moor Sweets at Braddock Down but perhaps the marshy bleak nature of Bodmin Moor protected them from too much incursion!

John & Ann Isak
8X GGP from Civil War to Tea

John Sweet 1629 was a child in the midst of the Civil War and other key historical conflicts. Civil War had ramifications for him and his father, William. Would his father be press-ganged? Would there be conflict with neighbours on opposing sides (royalists, parliamentarians) or, worse still, with their landlords? How would they manage if their livestock was taken to feed hungry soldiers, their wives and daughters threatened with rape, their crops trampled on and destroyed?

John was one of just 2 surviving children.  He had a brother, Thomas, but his sister, Rebecca, died in infancy.  His own parents, William and Mary, who are named on his baptism certificate, lived to a good age.  William died in 1674.  Mary died in 1687.  So John may have had caring responsibilities or at least had to work a living for both his wives, children and his parents.

John’s first wife, Ann Isak, is my 8X GGM.  She was born in 1612, so older than her husband John, and by the time they married in 1654, she was 42 years old.  They had just one son together, John in 1655 and she died in 1671.  Isak is variably spelt Isack, Isacke, Isake.  Her siblings were Agnes (b1610), Grace (b1611) and Francis (b1616).  Her father, Johannis Isak (b1567), married Elizabeth Ottram in 1594, but Ann’s mother was his 2nd wife, Rose Duranse (Durant) whom he married in 1606.  They were a St Neot family, so it is highly likely that Nicholas and her father, Johannis, knew each other quite well.

A year after Ann’s death, in 1672, John (b1629) married for a 2nd time, to Dorothie Rogers in St Neot.  He may have been anxious to insure his descendency against the risk of child mortality, with diseases and political upheaval all around.  John and Dorothie subsequently had 4 children – William (b1673), Joseph (b1677), Grace (b1678) and Walter (b1681).

The remainder of the Penkestle 3 lives lease did pass on to his son, John (b1655) but it had been much reduced during his father William’s lifetime and ended up expiring and being transferred out of Sweet control in 1719.

John b1629’s will, released in 1708, bequeaths: John b1655 40 shillings, Joseph ?pounds, Walter 6 pounds. He also mentions his daughter Grace and his 2nd wife, widow, Dorothie, who was bequeathed 2 pounds and 10 shillings a year if she did not remarry.  What he bequeathed to William is illegible but William died a year after his father’s will was released.  Thomas, from his 1st marriage, is not mentionned in his will as he predeceased his father (in 1683).  Also mentionned is Charles, who is likely to be his daughter Grace’s husband, Charles Pedler.  40 shillings is the equivalent of 20 days skilled labour.  Walter inherited more – the equivalent of a cow, a horse, some wheat and wool or 66 days of skilled labour.  However Walter would not have inherited a property lease.  Walter shared tenancy of Tremaddock with his brother William in the 1700s and they may have thrived well enough for Walter to get some form of education – he was a parish clerk and ‘yoeman’ by 1726.

John & Joan Bonny
7X GGP Monmouth Rebellion & Loss of Living

John (b1655) married outside of the parish of St Neot.  The diminishing prospect of holding onto Penkestle may have forced John to look beyond St Neot, agricultural labouring and tinning on Bodmin Moor, and towards other towns and villages with alternative industry.  In 1677, aged 20, he married Joan Bonny in Marhamchurch, St Teath.  She was born in St Teath in 1652 to a Thomas Bonny and Bridgett Smyth.   John and Joan named their 1st surviving daughter after her mother, Bridgett.

Later lease records identify John has having been a tennant of Newberry Cottage of Delynouth Manor, St Teath.  He most likely worked in the slate quarry, Delabole.  A branch of Sweets remained in St Teath and connected to Delabole Quarry so it’s quite possible that when John returned to the parish of St Neot in later life, some of his children remained in St Teath.  There was also a place called Sweet’s Tennement in St Teath.  Joan Bonny’s family were very well rooted in St Teath according to parish records.

John and Joan had their first 2 children within 2 years of marriage, but it appears that Jone and Thomas died in infancy.  His 3rd child, Richard (b1684) survived and is my direct ancestor.

Although there is no indication or record of John and Joan being embroiled in the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, other Sweets were implicated.  A Richard Sweet, “martyr”, was sentenced to death by Judge Jefferies for high treason and executed in Minehead. A William Sweet and Robert Sweet Junior were transported by a Captain John Price to a life of slavery in plantations on Jamaica.  They may well have been from the Fowey Coastal branch – Walter Sweet (b1608) of Roselath was associated with Henry Vincent of Roselath, probably by lease / tenancy, and Vincent who was a ring leader of the rebellion.  I need to dig further as it is also possible that the Sweets which were embroiled in the rebellion may have come from a Devonshire or Somerset branch.  It is not the first time the Fowey Coastal Sweets were involved in rebellion, however.  The Cornish Rebellion of 1497, culminating in the Battle of Deptford Bridge, was led by Michael Joseph and Thomas Flamank.  Flamank’s father, Richard, was a tax collector, working in close proximity and the same properties as Richard Swete, bailiff of St Columb.   

Richard & Jane Wilcock
6X GGP

This Route 1 makes the fact-based assumption that Richard born 1723 in Withiel is the son of Richard 1684, also born in Withiel.  Richard (1684) married Jane Wilcock in Luxulyan on 1st December, 1716. It’s possible that they settled in her family’s parish for a while. Jane’s parents were William and Blanch, hence the choice of name for Richard and Jane’s 3rd daughter.   Jane was born in Lanteglos-by-Fowey on 27 Dec 1687.

We have a death record of a Richard in Liskeard in 1745.  Richard and Jane’s daughter, Jane, born 1736 died on 3rd January 1736, in St Teath, just a few days old.  Another Jane Sweet died nearly 12 months later, 18th December 1736 in St Teath.  This could be his wife.  It leaves Richard with several young children to raise, under the age of 7 and only Mary b1721 would have been old enough to take care of them, assuming that it was not expected of his oldest son, Richard b1723.  There is no record of Richard b1684 re-marrying in that time frame in order to have a 2nd wife care for his young children.  This discredits the likelihood that his wife Jane died in 1736.  A further record of a Jane dying in 1747 in St Neot gives a better alternative scenario.  Richard does not leave a will.
Blanch marries Thomas Kellow in 1763, in Tintagel and dies in St Kew.  

Richard & Elizabeth Derry
5X GGP

Richard b1723 married Elizabeth Derry on 30th October 1750, in St Breock.  Her parents were William and Elizabeth Derry, and her siblings were John, Mary, Ann and Diana.  Although baptisms of their family are recorded as within the Withiel parish, the Derry family may have been connected to the Fowey Moor Sweets through St Neot –  Thomas and Henry Derry’s lease of Trekieve where Stephen Sweet, son of Bennet, inherited the 3 lives lease through his marriage and co-leased with his brother in law, Nicholas Sibly (who married Jone).  Stephen had no male heirs to continue the 3 lives lease through.  

Richard and Elizabeth bore children in Withiel but they died in St Neot, Richard in 1789,  Elizabeth in 1785 (Warleggan record).  Their son Joseph (b1758), my direct ancestor, is the first Sweet with a concrete link to Lampen Farm, Trenant, Diddylake and Lord’s Park Farm, which heralds a return to the St Neot parish.  Richard and Elizabeth may have moved to live close to their offspring in their sixties to St Cleer or St Neot.  

Records show in 1851 that an Elizabeth Sweet, baptised in 1766, was an inmate of an institution in St Columb Major.  This could be Richard’s daughter. 

In 1796, we also discover that St Teath appealed against an order awarded to Tintagel to evict William Sweet and wife Ann and their 2 children, William (3), Elizabeth (1) and force them back to St Teath.  William is listed as having worked with Blanch Sweet’s husband, Thomas Kellow and his brother Joseph Kellow at Delabole Quarry, whilst renting a home in Tintagel where the Kellows lived.  Whilst the story relates to Blanch Sweet, the William Sweet mentioned is not Richard (b1723)’s son baptised in 1755.  It is likely, however, that her son, Thomas Sweet is one indicted in 1850 for causing riot and assault in St Teath, and having to pay a fine (1 shilling) or otherwise face prison.

Joseph & Elizabeth Jane
4X GGP Lords Park and Diddylake

The 1700’s saw the Fowey Moor Sweets either marrying into property and re-establishing themselves in farmsteads around St Neot OR suffering great misfortunes.

John (b1751) was a labourer on a farmstead near Egloshayle.  He and his wife Rebecca had 9 children. 

Richard (b1753) married Martha, the widow of a gent and sea captain, whose sister Mary had also married a Sweet from another branch.  Richard raised Martha’s children as his own, and gained property in Whitehay, near Nastallion and Ruthernbridge as a result.  He remarried in 1794.  He may have gone by an alias, AKA Scott, taking the surname of his 1st wife’s husband to make it easier for her and the children in society, and in return for the property he now lived in.  

William (b1755) married Elizabeth Lucas in 1786.  She was born in Bodmin/Tywardreath and they lived and raised children there, however they died in the Bodmin Workhouse, paupers at the ages of 80 and 87 respectively, in 1828 and 1831, possibly the harshest place one could ever imagine ending up in old age.  What could have gone wrong for William (b1755) and Elizabeth Lucas that they ended up in the workshouse?  William Sweet (b1755) may have been a scoundrel or he may have been unlucky in health, incapacitated for the only work he was capable of – physical labour.  Without land to farm, his choices were very limited indeed.  The discontinuation of 3 life leases, whittled down to just 7 year leases, may have forced him into poverty.  However, there are convictions for a William Sweet littered everywhere (!) including: 1772-1773 sentence to inprisonment in Bridewell for want of sureties to pay Ursual James for a bastard son (he would have been 17 when he fathered the child); in 1776 a William and Richard pleaded guilty to charges of assault; 1784 William Thomas alias Sweet was  sentenced to 1 month’s hard labour in Bridewell for stealing 2 corn sacks.  
William and Elizabeth Lucas’ son, William, married Mary Ede of the Ede family of Menheniot in 1809 and thereafter their children adopted the surname Ede + Sweet. Henry Ede Sweet (b1812) married Mary Ann Doney. Joseph Ede Sweet lived in Treverbyn. Daniel Ede Sweet (b1826) died of consussion at just 30 years of age as a result of a freak accident. Despite their marriages, William and Elizabeth’s children were unwilling or unable to rescue their parents from destitution.

Elizabeth Sweet (b1766) married a scoundrel, Charles Higgs, who was convicted of larceny and spent time in Bodmin goal.   She, like William, also ended up destitute.  Their son, Richard Sweet Higgs was a criminal like his father and was sentenced to death for stealing a mare.  His sentence was commuted to life and he was transported as a covict on the York ship to Van Diemen’s Land, on 30th April 1829.  He died just 2 years later in 1831 at the age of 33. He left behind a wife, Harriet, whom he’d married in 1816, and records suggest that he also had at least 3 children.  One of his children, Jane Higgs b 1821, died in Bodmin Lunatic Asylum in 1896, having been admitted at the age of 74 in 1883. 

Joseph (1758), my ancestor, 4X GGF married a landowner in her own right, called Elizabeth Jane.  Their marriage in St Cleer parish was witnessed by his brother Richard (b1753), who was by this time already married to Martha but soon to find himself widowed. 

In 1837 voter registers Joseph is listed as occupying Lord’s Park Farm, freehold.  His son William (b1793) is listed in Lampen and Trenant.  By the 1841 census, Joseph, aged 85 and his wife Elizabeth (80) are now living in Diddylake, with their son William (b1793, aged 45 he’s a miner) with his wife Elizabeth, his other son Richard (b1803, aged 35, also a miner) and his wife Jane.  My 3XGGF Joseph Sweet (b 1796) occupies Lords Park Farm with his wife Ann Carpenter and their children.

Elizabeth Jane had a small holding in 1793 and 11 acres at Treverbyn leased to Robert Keast of Higher Trenant. In 1815 William Lord took Higher Trenant after Jonathan Keast was forced to give it up, alongside Diddylake farm/tenements.  William Lord (b 1766, alias Broad) may be same who married Ann Stephens in 1793, becoming Joseph’s daughter Ann’s brother in law when she married Humphrey Stephens in 1824.  The web of families grew!  So Joseph (b1758) may have used Elizabeth Jane’s small holding as leverage to obtain 3 properties for himself and his son (or sons) – Diddylake, Lords Park Farm and Lampen.  Joseph died in 1844 just as a potato blight famine and unemployment for miners hit Cornwall.  The secure set up he creates for his family with leases on farmsteads in very close proximity to each other in St Neot means that, when they weren’t mining or quarrying, they had land to live off.  His oldest son, William, pre-deceased him.  His daughter Elizabeth died just 3 years after him.  

William Lord 1793-1823 – his death may have been the turning point to obtain Lords Park. His mother was Mary Henwood (d 1814). She outlived her husband and may have remarried William Keast who could be related to Jonathan Keast who originally had the lease on Diddylake before it went to James Carpenter. 

1841 Joseph, 85, is living in Diddylake with his wife Elizabeth, 80, and next to his family, sons William (1793), miner, & Richard (1803), miner. Joseph’s occupation, despite his age, is ‘miner’.  His other son Joseph (1796) is in Lords Park, listed as a farmer. Joseph’s son Richard (1803) also has a Susan Common, 13, living as a servant whilst an Elizabeth Sweet, age 65, b1776, is living with William Common (HH) in Roche. There are Stephens and Higman family members in the same place. William (1793) has Samson Wilton, a 20yo miner, living in his HH and he will eventually marry Joseph (1796)’s daughter Elizabeth.

Joseph and Ann Carpenter
3X GGP Lords Park

The family, under Joseph (b1796) goes through a period of welcome stability.  His marriage to Ann Carpenter strengthens his position in the Diddylake-Lords Park-Lampen group of farms. 

In 1826, Joseph is listed as a labourer living in Diddylake.  By 1836 Joseph is listed in voter records as a freehold farmer at Lords Park Farm.  He has progressed from labourer to farmer AND he gets to live in Lords Park, not the ramshackle Diddylake.  

In 1841, his brother William (b1793) is in Diddylake, and sharing the space with his elderly parents, Joseph andElizabethand his brother, Richard, his wife and child.  

In 1841 Joseph (1796) aged 40-ish, farmer, is in Lords Park with Ann (Carpenter) his wife, and Elizabeth, Richard William, John and Joseph (10).
In 1861 Joseph (64) Lords Park, farmer of 64 acres with tin stream, plus w Ann (51), Son John (21) farmer’s son, Elizabeth Wilton – granddaughter (15) and Joseph Carpenter (55), boarder, agric. labourer and poss. Ann Carpenter’s brother. 
In 1871 Lords Park, Joseph aged 75, farmer of 147 acres, lives with his wife Ann 62, her brother Joseph Carpenter, 67.  Joseph is clearely thriving, having increased his acreage from 10 to 147.  He has ensured that his family consolidate their fortunes through marriage, and probably taking advantage of the exodus of Cornish men in search of mining and quarrying work overseas, after a period of famine.

In Joseph’s 1874 will he leaves £100 to Ann Sweet is his executrix. She died in 1875, aged 66, registered to Diddylake, whereas Joseph was registered at Lords Park at his time of death. 
Joseph’s brother William (b1793) died of consumption at just 49 years old in 1843.  Their father, Joseph who died a year later, may have suffered the same fate.  William and his Johanna did not have any children.
When Joseph’s daughter Elizabeth (b1825) marries Sampson Wilton they continue to live in Diddylake.  

Joseph’s sister Ann marries Humphrey Stephens, 1824, in St Cleer
In the 1841 census she is sleeping in a barn at Winsor, aged 40, with husband Stephen 45, an agricultural labourer, children Elizabeth 15 and James Doney 15.  

By 1851 Humphrey and Ann Stephens are still in St Cleer – Humphrey is an agricultural labourer, and their daughter Elizabeth (now 26) is a dressmaker with her illegitimate son, William, aged 4.  She’d made a marriage allegation in 1846 against Henry Chapman, a farmer, Braddock when she was just 20.  In 1853 Humphrey is in prison.  1861 census shows Ann Stephens is a housekeeper. Elizabeth is still a dressmaker, now aged 36, and her son has been given her new husband’s name, John Henry Pearce (m1854).  Sadly William (alias Pearce) has to work in a copper mine at just 14 years old. A John Pearce was sentenced to 6y in servitude in 1857 and by 1865 Elizabeth has moved on and is now ‘E Richards’ with a 6yo son, Samuel.In 1869 Ann was acquitted of larceny and in 1871 she is listed as ‘wife of labourer’. She dies aged 72 in St Cleer.  Humphrey is admitted to a lunatic asylum 1872 where he dies in 1873.  We come full circle back to Winsor, from the Winsor barn to Winsor cottage when in 1891 Elizabeth is listed as a widow, 66, living on her own means in St Cleer.

Joseph’s youngest sibling, Richard marries Jane Landrey (from St Ive) in 1839.  He may have had a 1st marriage to Elizabeth Pearse in 1830, but Elizabeth died in 1835/36, aged just 24, due to ‘decline’.  Richard and Jane have a son, Caleb, and in 1841 he appears in the census. Richard’s occupation is described as “streamer”.  The 1861 census states that they now live in Lower Langdon Farm.  He’s aged 58, she’s 56 and they have other children, Elizabeth 16 and Ann 12 living with them. Richard’s daughter Elizabeth (Lower Langdon), marries Joseph’s son, Richard (Higher Langdon), in 1856, when they are 24 and 27 – they’re 1st cousins.  Richard & Elizabeth have: Elizabeth 1832 and Richard 1836. Elizabeth probably died giving birth to Richard.  With Jane he has William 1840, Caleb 1841, Susanna 1844, Eliza Jane 1845, Anne 1848. Elizabeth Pearse was a minor when Richard (b1803) married her, and may have only been 18. Richard (b1803) died a pauper in 1878, and was in Lunatic Asylum in 1875

Great Great Grandparents
Children of Joseph (b1796) and Ann Carpenter

My Great Great Grandfather was Joseph Sweet, and my Great Great Grandmother was Betsey Ann Doney.  They lived in Lords Park Farm.  Elizabeth (b1825) lived in Diddylake, John (b1840) lived in Parsons Park, a short distance away. Richard married his first cousin, Elizabeth, with whom he had grown up through childhood.  William (b1835) is the only known ancestor who voluntarily emigrated.  He moved to the USA in 1888, hot on the heals of his in-laws (the Keast family).  He died in Iowa having gained social and professional status there. 
Many Cornish families emigrated in the 1840’s as Cornwall suffered its own famine as a result of corn prices.
The Cornish diaspora spreads to Australia, New Zealand, America, even India to find work or escape famine. 
The generations who remained in Cornwall did eventually improve their prospects, capitalising on the growing demand for quarried granite to support the industrial revolution, the railways and the trend for gravestones and ornate monuments.  Many of the “new” gravestones can be found in St Neot and St Cleer graveyards, carved by Sweets and even for Sweets themselves.  That new living led the Sweets to move to Moorswater and Liskeard.

Great Grandparents
Children of Joseph (b1832) and Betsey Ann Doney

My Great Grandfather was Herbert Lewis Sweet, baptised 1871, and my Great Grandmother was Emily Ada Marchant.  This is the first generation of our line of Sweets which freely moved away from the parish, St Neot, and even from the county, Cornwall.  Almost all of these Sweet ancestors are linked to Lords Park Farm and its neighbouring farms.  Most of this generation lived through two world wars.  Some lost sons or saw their sons return from war profoundly changed.  Others fought in a war themselves.

My Grandparents
Children of Herbert Lewis and Emily Ada.

My Grandfather, Leslie Joseph (aka Joe) and his siblings grew up in relative comfort in White Lodge, Yiewsley, Middlesex.  Victoria, the eldest, aka Queenie, moved to South Africa as soon as she married.  Lewis Charles was old enough to fight in WW1.  Lily lived the longest and ended her days in Cornwall, near Plymouth.  Herbert, aka Jack, suffered permanent injury as a result of a motorbike accident as a young man, and spent most of his adult life in a sanatorium in Wandsworth.  Clifford married Constance Surridge, and it was through her that Joe met his own wife, Doris.  Vera’s first husband, Henry Roy (aka Roy) was a prisoner of war in Burma.  The harsh experience permanently damaged his health.  Vera also died in Plymouth.  Doris spent much of her married life in South Africa.  Her son (living) is a renowned artist with paintings depicting life in Africa.