Too Many Wills, Not Enough Wills – 52 Ancestors #9

My emigrant ancestors on my mother’s paternal side were William Denman and Ann Boorman (my 4-g grandparents).  Both of these families named sons William with great regularity.  Ann Boorman’s father was William Boorman and as it turns out his father and grandfather were also Williams.  (Ann also had a brother named William.)  I am writing this partly to complement the post by cousin Claudia on the same 52 Ancestor topic.  She wrote about William Boorman (1719-1790) primarily.  This William Boorman, Ann’s grandfather, was a wheelwright in Staplehurst, Kent and left his house and land in Staplehurst to his son William by his will.  Thus this younger William is connected to the older one.

We also have the will from Ann Boorman’s father William, who cousin Claudia names William III in her post.  This William Boorman (c 1746-1824) was also a wheelwright, as his father and reportedly his grandfather before him.  This meant that he had an estate to leave, so there was a will.  I have written about this before, a couple of years ago when I posted the transcription I had done.  This William Boorman also  named his children and left various bequests to them, including to his daughter Ann Denman in America.  So on Ann Boorman Denman’s side we have a pretty clear lineage leading back to England.

William Denman, husband of Ann Boorman, has a less-well documented  parentage.  Although there are Denman researchers who put events together and make assumptions, there is little satisfactory evidence.  For example, there is a pedigree, produced by a Denman researcher that shows my grandfather William Denman as the son of a William Denman and Ann Marten, that William being the son of William Denman and wife Sarah (no surname), and that William a son of a William Denman, and that William a son of a William Denman.  Too many Wills!  But also a richness of wills, with each of the earlier Williams having left a will naming a son William.  The sole exception was William Denman who married Ann Marten and might have been my William’s father.

The William Denman (bef 1681-1739), who would have been my William’s grandfather by this thinking, left a will with wife Sarah as executrix.  The first bequest in his will (which I have transcribed) left all his farms and lands in Capel or elsewhere in the county of Surrey, to his eldest son William.  Also named were his other children, including an unmarried daughter (Ann Denman) and a son Samuel  who might have been a minor at the time of the writing of the will.  The parish of Capel is about 2.5 miles from the border of Sussex county.  What is not clear is how and why William Denman who was living in Cowfold, Sussex at the time he wrote his will, had farms and lands in Surrey  County.  This William had apparently lived in Cowfold parish for some time and was likely buried at the church there, St. Peter’s.  His mother Hannah Garston Denman was buried there.  The three parishes associated with this family Cuckfield, Bolney, and Cowfold are adjacent to each other west to east.

There has been no will found as of yet for this William the eldest son.  Since it would seem he must have had property, it is odd not to find a will.  Further, if this William was a member of the Baptist community at Ditchling where my William was said to be born, the will or other land records should exist in Sussex county archives.  So far they haven’t appeared to exist.  The fact that William and his wife and family were members of the Baptist community at Ditchling makes records more problematic as a result of loss of some of the church’s records.  As mentioned earlier, there were also a great sufficiency of William Denmans in the general neighborhood at any given time.

So in the end, although I have evidence for Ann Boorman’s family line, and for the marriage of William Denman and Ann Boorman, I have no strong evidence for William’s parentage.  I can only hope that where there’s a will (or a Will) there’s a way.