The documents

Well I have transcribed a couple more of the documents and it has been very interesting. One was an indenture confirming a sale of land to Robert Smith of Swineshead, and the other was his will.

Apparently Robert Smith, yeoman, born 1712, died 1753 (at least the will was dated 1753, so I am assuming he died that year), had purchased some land and property from Samuel Preston of Boston in 1750 and when he made his will this land was divided between his five surviving sons. It seems that the original document of the sale had been mislaid and the indenture was to confirm the original sale. The will was very informative. Robert's sons were all underage at the time of his death and so the land etc was held by the trustees until the boys became of age. It was 1775 when they decided they had to do something about the missing sale document so maybe there was a dispute over the ownership of the land.

I did some digging to find out more and found that Samuel, the eldest son, was fifteen in 1753, John was thirteen and Robert was twelve. The other two were considerably younger, Richard being aged five and William just an infant as he was born in the year of his father's death. I haven't ascertained yet if he was born before or after his father died. There were two other sons, Benjamin and William and a daughter Ann who were all dead when Robert made his will. Ann and William both died in 1850 when William was aged five and Ann was six. A childhood illness perhaps, that they both had at the same time? I haven't found the date of Benjamin's death yet.

Robert also had one surviving daughter Prudence, to whom he left £250. This was to be invested for her until she came of age and the interest over the years was to pay for her education. Prudence was born in 1742, so was eleven when her father made his will.

There have been Smiths in Swineshead for a number of years now and a friend of mine Jack Smith died recently aged ninety four. I felt that these people were most likely to be his ancestors. I knew Jack's family history back three generations, so did a bit more digging and was delighted to find a connection. Jack would have been so pleased to have known all this - what a shame I didn't receive these documents before he died. He used to love to reminisce about 'the old days' and would have been very interested in all this.