| Notes |
- RESEARCH_NOTES:
1. FHL film 252545, church records for Bellingham parish, Northumberland:
A. Christenings from 1720-1750 for a father Thomas of Dunterlee (there are many Charltons since this is the area of the ancestral home of the Charltons, but the registrar was very good at always identifying a residence for each entry). These are the only Charltons identified with the abode of Dunterley and we can presume them as one family related to us; also note that several family histories show two additional children in this family - Michael and Peter, chr. 8 Feb 1740, from Dunterlee - however, the church records do not show such entries from 1725 to 1750. Likewise, some show Jacob Joseph Charlton being two individuals; however, the record is clear that this is one individual while identifying Jane as the other half of the "twins."
-30 Apr 1727, Lionel, son of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-23 Apr 1730, George, son of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-27 Dec 1731, John, son of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-24 Jun 1733, Ann, dau. of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-27 Dec 1735, Elenor, dau. of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-13 Oct 1737, Thomas, son of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-25 Apr 1739, Edward, son of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee.
-16 Jun 1743, "Jacob Joseph and Jane, twins of Thomas Charlton, Dunterlee."
B. Assuming Thomas would be about 21 minimum at marriage, his birth would have had to be 1706 or earlier. Checking the same record as above from 1684 to 1710 for Bellingham parish, I find the following, none of which I can determine as being for sure our Thomas even though one surely must be - there is always the possibility he was chr. in a different parish, but I doubt it since this is the ancestral home of the Charltons:
-28 Mar 1701, Thomas, son of John Charlton, Bellingham.
-20 Sep 1702, Thomas, son of William Charlton, the Burn (on/or?) Hole.
-1 Mar 1706, Thomas, son of William Charlton, Hesleyside head.
-3 Jul 1709, Thomas, son of John Charlton, Gidwood. [This entry may be too late considering that most men married at age 21 minimum.]
C. Same as B above but for Simonburn from 1682-1710 using extracted IGI batch records:
-11 Nov 1688, Thomas, son of Matthew Charlton.
D. FHL film 252545, burials in Bellingham parish from 1687-1800. There were many Charltons all with residences given, but generally without any relationships or ages - I only found one that was noted from Dunterlee, but it is impossible to determine the relationship if any from the scant information given:
-7 Feb 1792, Mary Charlton of Dunterlee.
E. Per IGI extracted records and FHL film 252551, there are no marriages for a Thomas Charlton for our time period in the Simonburn parish before 1732. There are no marriage records for Bellingham parish before 1754 since Bellingham was a subservient chapelry to Simonburn and no weddings were performed in the chapel prior to that time. The double marriage that occurs in 1732 is: "Thomas Charlton and Ann Shield, James Charlton and Jane Thurley, all of Symondburn parish married by banns." I believe this is too late to be our Thomas.
Caution! Even though it is clear that this 1732 marriage was five years and three children after Thomas' children are christened, there are many undocumented family trees that show this as the marriage for our Thomas, which basis I believe to be erroneous. The record is also ambiguous enough about the location so that we cannot determine whether it is our Thomas of Dunterley/Bellingham or not. I do see that entries within a year of either side of this one are made in the same handwriting and do note when the couples are from the Bellingham Chapelry - which is not the case with this particular entry. Some of those who purport Ann Shields as the wife to our Thomas per this 1732 marriage also indicate that Ann Charlton, wife of Thomas of Stobbylee, was buried 24 Jul 1750 and that he remarried Mary Charlton in Simonburn 3 Dec 1752. Unfortunately, this 1752 marriage, when seen in the records, does not give any particulars of where the couple is from or whether it is truly the same Thomas or not who had previously married Ann Shields. Also the supposed 1750 burial for Ann does not show up in either the Simonburn burial records nor in Bellingham, whose burial records are missing from 1748-1755.
In looking at the same Simonburn parish records, I don't find any marriage records that work for Thomas' children including Lionel, George, Ann, Elenor, Thomas, Edward, Jacob Joseph, or Jane. There are however the following possibilities for the others, but I have not yet done systematic searches of other nearby parishes to confirm whether they are correct or not:
-John: 30 Apr 1755, John Charlton of this parish and Elizabeth Eliot in the parish of Bellingham married by banns. [The fact that he is not of Bellingham makes this John appear not to be ours.]
F. In looking at FHL film 252546, Bellingham marriage records beginning 1754, I don't see marriage records for the following of Thomas' Children: Lionel, George, or Jacob; however, the following ones should be investigated further:
-11 May 1757, Ann Charlton and Christopher Wilkinson, both of the parish, wit: "Jhon" Wilkinson and Edward Charlton. [Many family histories believe this is our Ann.]
-7 Dec 1757, Thomas Charlton and Margt. Lows, wit: Sidorf(?) Elliot and William Charlton.
-14 Jan 1758, Jane Charlton and Peter Dodd, wit: Robert Lovejoy and John Ridley.
-4 May 1760, John Charlton, of Barnsteed in the par. of Simonburn, and Dorothy Scott of Greenhaugh of this chapelry, wit: George Forster and John Ridley.
-Abt. 29 Jan 1761, Edward Charleton and Margaret Reed, of Stobilee of this chapelry, wit: Jno. Dunn and John Lam. [Many family histories believe this is our Edward.]
-31 Jan 1762, Thomas Charlton, of Burnbank in this chapelry, and Christian Dodd, of Buteland of the parish of Chollerton, wit: Michael Dod and William Hall.
-24 May 1767, Eleanor Charlton, of Stobbylee, and John Scott of Antenhell, both of this chapelry, wit: Thos. Charlton and Thomas Charlton. [Many family histories believe this is our Eleanor.]
-24 May 1778, Edward Charlton, of Knopingholm, and Rebeccah Richardson, both of the chapelry of Bellingham, wit: John Breckons and John Richardson.
-23 Jun 1781, Joseph Charlton, if the High-Green, and Ann Elliott, of the Gatehouse, both of this chapelry, wit: Jno. Graham and John Ridley.
-8 Dec 1781, Jane Charlton and John Batey, both of the town and chapelry of Bellingham, wit: William Robson and Simon Dodd.
-16 Jun 1782, Jane Charlton and George Brackons, both of the town and chapelry of Bellingham, wit: Thos. Robson and James Oliver.
-9 Dec 1784, John Charlton and Elizabeth Robson, both in this chapelry, wit: Thom. Robson and James Charlton.
-9 Jun 1785, Jane Charlton, of High Carriteth(?), and William Robson, of Whitchester(?), wit: William Charlton, John Robson, and John Robson.
-Abt. 29 Aug 1786, Edward Charleton, esq. of Lechall in this chapelry, and Isabella Laing, of the parish of Ateaham(?) in North Britain, wit: Gab'l Goldburn, John Ridley, and Edward Heron.
2. Charlton Surname Origin: (English) Belonging to Charleton or Charlton = the Churls' Place or Farm [Old English Carla-tun/Cearla-tun - carla/cearla-, genitive plural of carl/cearl, ceorl, a churl, peasant]. Source: Surnames of the United Kingdom, A Concise Etymological Dictionary; Henry Harrison; Vol.1 & 2.; The Eaton Press, 190 Ebury Street, London, S.W; 1912. [Note also that Carleton is a form Charlton.]
3. From the FHL book British 942.82-D3w, "Men of Mark, 'Twixt Tyne and Tweed," v. 1, A-C, pp. 525-527
" 'The countreye of North Tynedaill, which is more plenished with wild and misdemeaned people, may make of men upon housebak and upon foote, about six hundred. They stand most by fower [four] surnames, whereof the Charletons be the chief. And in all services or charge impressed uppon that countrey the Charletons, and such as be under their rule, be rated for the one-half of that countrey.' - Sir Robert Bowe's Report, 1550.
No North-Countryman needs to be told that the Charltons of Northumberland form a very numerous and belong to a very ancient family. Their origin, and their manner of coming hither, no antiquary has discovered, and no genealogist has been able to trace. The valley of the North Tyne was their principal home; from the upper reaches of that wild and thinly populated vale they made the country ring in the olden time with daring and lawless deeds. They were the 'sufficientest and ablest men' upon the Borders during the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns, as successive Wardens of the Marches found to their cost, and more than one Scottish chieftain remembered for the rest of his life. The State papers of Henry VIII, and Elizabeth are loaded with complaints of their bold adventures and tales of their wild misdeeds. At their family seat of Hesleyside is still preserved the spur which the lady of the house put into the principal dish at table as a reminder that her liege lord must ride across country to seek among the cattle of his enemies the means of replenishing her exhausted larder. Although hunted and captured by Royal troops, fined and imprisoned by judges of Assize, and occasionally 'hanged up in chains upon a pair of gallows,' for 'terrible example of sembable offenders,' they helped to keep the Borders in a state of ferment and unrest for generations. From time immemorial Charltons have lived in Northumberland; a glance at local directories will show that no fear need be entertained of the name dying out.
According to tradition the family descended from Adam, lord of the manor of Charlton in Tynedale, in the latter part of the reign of Edward I. (1303), the chief of a numerous and powerful clan. Their connected pedigree begins with William, son of Edward Charlton, of Charlton Tower and Hesleyside, who was in possession of the paternal estates in 1542, when the first Government survery was made in these outlying districts, where the king's writ previously only run when borne on the point of a spear. [The article continues with a detailed descendancy of this pedigreed portion of the Charltons to which I see no immediate or direct linkage to our distant-related Charltons.]
4. As George MacDonald Fraser explains in his book, "The Steel Bonnets": "The great border tribes of both Scotland and England feuded continuously among themselves. Robbery and blackmail were everyday professions; raiding, arson, kidnapping, murder, and extortion were an accepted part of the social system. While the monarchs of England and Scotland ruled the comparatively secure hearts of their kingdoms, the narrow hill land between was dominated by the lance and the sword. The tribal leaders from their towers, the broken men, and outlaws of the mosses, the ordinary peasants of the valleys, in their own phrase, 'shook loose the Border'. They continued to shake it as long as it was political reality, practising systematic robbery and destruction on each other. History has christened them the Border Reivers. In the story of Britain, the Border Reiver is a unique figure. He was not part of a separate minority group in his area; he came from every social class. He was an agricultural labourer, or a small-holder, or a gentleman farmer, or even a peer of the realm, a professional cattle rustler, a fighting man and a guerrilla soldier of great resource to whom the arts of theft, raid, tracking, and ambush were second nature. He was also a gangster organized on highly professional lines, who had perfected the protection racket three centuries before Chicago was built. He gave blackmail to the English language." Throughout the Reiving years, travel was dangerous business. Strangers met with suspicion, fear and hostility. The traveller had to move cautiously by day, always sought shelter before nightfall and rarely found a welcome. The Border Lands, territorial patch of the Border Reiver, straddle the once disputed boundary and Debatable Land between "two of the most energetic, aggressive, talented and all together formidable nations in history," England and Scotland. They stretch in one broad sweep from the Solway Firth in the west to the Northumbrian and Berwickshire coast in the east and comprise the Cheviot Hills and parts of the Southern Uplands and the Pennines. To the west, they are the Solway Coast and the Eden Valley, to the east, the Merse. They are riven by the waters of the Nith, the Annan, the Esk, the Teviot, the Tweed, and by Redesdale, Coquetdale, Tynedale and, of course Liddesdale, scene of so many of the bloodiest events of the Reiving years. The Border lands are home to the descendants of the notorious Reivers and their marauding families: the Armstrongs, the Grahams, the Irvines, the Kerrs, the Scotts, the Elliots, the Maxwells, the Johnstones, the Musgraves, the Bells, the Fosters, the Charltons, the Nixons and the Robsons to name just some of the more feuding elements of Border society in the 16th century. The area is liberally dotted with castles, stately homes, the ruins of historic abbeys, fortified farmhouses (bastles), the scattered remains of pele towers and the atmospheric remnants of abandoned hamlets or howfs, hidden up remote side valleys. The many towns and settlements that were raided, the fortified churches and the defensive walls and dykes dating back to Elizabeth I and her forbears, the fields of battle and the Reiver graveyards all bear testament to the turbulent history that marked these lands and those times. The brutal activities of the warring families and the indiscriminate plundering and merciless cruelty that drove fear deep into the very souls of ordinary Border folk. Other vestiges of that virtually ungovernable region, of that lawless state that was allowed to flourish, more or less unchecked, for the best part of 350 years, reside within the ancient seats of power, the Warden families such as the Buccleuchs, Dacres, Humes and Scropes, the frontier garrisons, the places of truce. And on the Reiver side, there are the secret places of sanctuary, the lairs they fled to in the heat of pursuit, the 'hot trod'; mosses and wastes where pursuing posses could find themselves at a distinct disadvantage; hidden valleys where one thousand head of cattle could be spirited away. The official Border Reiver's Website is at <http://www.reivers.com>. To read more about the official Border Reivers Website and its educational programs, contact them by E-Mail at: admin@reivers.com.
5. Unsure of the source but from the "Surnames of East England" on the Internet: "CHARLTON A BORDER REIVER NAME. Charlton, the surname derives from Charlton, the place name which means the farm belonging to a churl- a peasant or person of low birth. It is from churl that we get the word churlish meaning ill bred. Several places called Charlton can be found in England but the surname is so closely associated with Northumberland that the hamlet of Charlton near Bellingham in North Tynedale would seem to be the most likely place of origin for the surname. In the Elizabethan days of Border Raiding, the Charlton clan were active in North Tynedale and carried out sheep and cattle thieving forays throughout the north. Their favourite victim was the Scott family of Baccleugh near Hawick in Scotland. Hesleyside Hall near Bellingham was the seat of the Charltons and is the subject of a Northumbrian tune called 'The Hesleyside Reel'. Visitors to the National Trust's Wallington Hall near Morpeth can see a huge frescoe depicting the Charlton family assembled for lunch at Hesleyside. The Lady of the house has brought in a salver and dish for her hungry family but the salver has been lifted to reveal an empty dish, empty that is except for a riding spur. It was a great tradition of the Charlton family that when the larder was empty the spur would be presented in this way as a hint that if the family wanted food they would have to go raiding. The Charltons don't seem all that disappointed at the prospect of raiding enemy territory for mutton or beef. In the violent past famous Border raiding Charltons included John of the Bower and Thomas of Hawcop but Charltons can still be found throughout the Borders today and are a well known family name in the North East. Among the famous Charltons of more recent times are of course the Ashington footballing brothers Bobby and Jack."
BURIAL:
1. FHL film 252545, burials in Bellingham parish from 1687-1800, show the following death which may or may not be our Thomas: "5 Apr 1769, Thomas Charlton of Stobilee."
Some family histories say it is, but the entry clearly does not say Dunterley. On the other hand, both Stobilee and Dunterley are in the township of Leemailing. Some Charlton researchers link the two locations together for purposes of studying Thomas Charlton, but I am not so sure. The 1851 census shows both locations as very near each other with Stobilee being 4 cottages together and Dunkerley (Dunterley?) has a large farm with other houses spread out and with enough distance to have other places in between in the manner that the census was carried out.
On the other hand, the following entry ties two Thomases to Eleanor (probably our Thomas and his son) per FHL film 252546, Bellingham marriage records beginning 1754: "24 May 1767, Eleanor Charlton, of Stobbylee, and John Scott of Anton Hill, both of this chapelry, wit: Thos. Charlton and Thomas Charlton."
It should be noted that there are several records involving Thomas Jr. with Stobilee, starting 1770 which would tie in with Thomas Sr. being there at the time of his death in 1769.
I suspect this is our Thomas.
!ACTION:
1. Try to locate the following book: "Recollections of a Northumberland Lady," by Barbara Charlton (1815-1866) who was the wife of William Charlton of Hesleyside. It may of interest knowing our Charltons are of the Hesleyside vicinity.
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Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy
Bef 1706 - 1769 (~ 63 years)