Sarah who?

MollyMay

MollyMay

Knows where to find the answers!
I may be asking for the impossible here.
I have been revisiting my Reeder family from Wells next the Sea Norfolk, one of my earliest searches, so may have errors and I am sure more info is available now than when I last looked at them years ago.
The Reeders were inhabitants of North Norfolk for centuries. John Reeder who died in 1588 is the furthest back I have got.
Back to my question - I am trying to find the marriage and the surname of Sarah who married Robert Reeder probably in the mid 1680's
Robert was the son of Thomas, a mercer and Alice (Mayne) and was bap 6/8/1662 at Wells.
I have a note (I did not record the source, but it could be from the register of clergy) that Robert attended Caius College Cambridge 18/5/1680
He reappears as curate in the church at Whissonet in 1686, and is buried there 26/9/1691
Why I think the question might be impossible to answer is that Robert signs the PR pages for Easter 1686-1687, but the previous page is dated 1683/4 - so there could be 2/3 years of the register missing.
Robert and Sarah baptise 2 boys in Whissonet - Thomas 4/2/1688 and Robert 6/1/1690 (my direct line)
Any thoughts/input thankfully received
 
Archie's Mum said:
Robert Reeder and Sarah Stockhold 18/4/1872 Denver Norfolk? .
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A tree on Anc has that one also a marriage to Sarah Stockhold in York in when Robert was just 2 years old!:eek:

I have noted the Sarah Bezelem one, I have only seen a transcription (I have pages of his handwriting and signatures from the PR's), it is a possibility. He also could have married in Cambridge, or anywhere really.

Thanks for looking AM :)
 
Ancestry have the Cambridge University Alumni record for Robert REEDER who entered Caius College on 18 May 1680. He is shown as the son of Thomas REEDER, Mercer, of Wells Norfolk. B.A. 1683/4 and was ordained Deacon (Norwich) in December 1684. Doesn't give any information about a marriage but at least corroborates the note you have.

Janet
 
Clergy of the Church of England Index shows that Robert was appointed Deacon at the Chapel of Bishops Palace, Norwich on 12 December 1684. The marriage of Robert REEDER to Sarah BEZELEM at London St James Dukes Place shows that he was a bachelor & Sarah was a widow (image available on Ancestry) so not too sure that this helps much either. I can't find a marriage for a Robert REEDER/READER on my Cambridgeshire FHS Marriages CD in the appropriate timescale.

Janet
 
I have seen the image and now have a query.
The entry reads Robert Reeder br Sarah Bezelem wd - I get that
It is followed by
1768133889269.webp
So what does the ssr/ffr - looking at the abbreviation used for spinster 1768134289372.webpin the register, I think it is ss with a superscript r - could it mean sponsor? If so why would couples need a sponsor?
Most entries on the page have a name and this abbreviation after the names of the marrying couple, they are all different so not the name of the officiating minister
 
In Catholic baptisms "spr" = sponsor = godparent, but this isn't a baptism and it's certainly not RC. Could "sst" be "surrogate"? That would only work if this record was a marriage licence not a marriage. A marriage licence has the signature of the BIshop's Surrogate, the man acting on behalf of the bishop, and authorised to use the episcopal powers to grant the licence.
 
Just a thought; looking at the abbreviation there is a distinct line through the centre of the first two letters (unlike the spinster abbreviation which shows the loops not touching) so I would read it as ff, that's to say a capital F. But what Fr stands for in this instance I'm not sure.
 
janetbooth said:
The marriage of Robert REEDER to Sarah BEZELEM at London St James Dukes Place shows that he was a bachelor & Sarah was a widow (image available on Ancestry)
Click to expand...
According to Familysearch: "During the second half of the seventeenth century, St James' Duke's Place was a clandestine place of marriage, free of the Bishop of London. 40,000 marriages took place there between 1661 and 1691. In 1686, the rector was actually suspended for performing marriages without banns or licence."

Looking a the full image, there are other couples where the parish is shown instead of the abbreviation, ie its always one or the other.

Going back through the register, using image 83 as an example, the top entry again shows a couple (James Fill & Eliz Goult) and their Parish (St Sepulchres), whereas the next entry - and all of those without a parish - have the name of a 3rd person and then the abbreviation Fr. The 3rd person was presumably someone local who had 'vouched' for them or something similar, so to me the later abbreviation SFr (or whatever it is!) means the couple weren't from London and no-one vouched for them or acted as witness or whatever.

All very vague, but I hope you get my meaning!
 
Steve Bumstead said:
Great find Andromeda. Fr could stand foreign (ie. not of the parish) or, more likely, a latin abbreviation indicating the same thing.
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I thought Sourjourner at first, but the letters don't fit!

I also couldn't understand a 2-letter abbreviation when there was a third person noted in the register and a 3-letter abbreviation when there wasn't, but maybe that's just a simple change in the method of recording rather than a change in actual meaning?

It definitely seems to indicate that they were 'outsiders' though.
 
Thank you @Andromeda, a great find and explanation.
Still no further forward in proving this is my Robert, but have learned something new:)
I do not know if a man training in holy orders would have a clandestine marriage, but if Sarah being a widow was problematic within Robert's family then he just might have.
 
Except I lost the plot somewhere and had it in my head that there was no third person on Robert & Sarah's marriage, when of course there was!

Going back to earlier in the register, image 80 on the left page has [groom] and [bride]were married (date), [third person] gave her so that seems to have been Robert Butcher's role.

The right hand page seems to be where the abbreviation at the end of the entry began to be used.

Then playing about with Google a bit, it seems that a lower case double ff was used to indicate a capital letter, so ffr (from Robert & Sarah's marriage) and Fr (from the example I used on page 83) are actually the same thing.

That being the case, I think Foreign/er as suggested by Steve is probably correct.
 
Archie's Mum said:
Looking at other forums for this answer...it seems it is ffr = father. Fath
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But if that's the case, then every bride had a different surname to her father......

The other reason I think that's highly unlikely is that these were all clandestine / irregular marriages, so it would kind of defeat the objective in a lot of cases!
 
Andromeda said:
But if that's the case, then every bride had a different surname to her father......

The other reason I think that's highly unlikely is that these were all clandestine / irregular marriages, so it would kind of defeat the objective in a lot of cases!
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I’m not able to see the other entries but all forums I have read state that ffr most likely means ‘father’. And yes these forums were referring to the same clandestine or irregular marriages performed at the same place.
Bezelem is Jewish for ‘in the image of God’ and Sarah is the only one carrying that name that I can see.
 
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MollyMay said:
Thank you @Andromeda, a great find and explanation.
Still no further forward in proving this is my Robert, but have learned something new:)
I do not know if a man training in holy orders would have a clandestine marriage, but if Sarah being a widow was problematic within Robert's family then he just might have.
Click to expand...
It could also be that she was Jewish.
 
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