"Item I assign to wife and son William the teachinge [tithing?] Barnes of Uppton and Stoke being within the lordship of Hawkysburye" This would be a Tithe - The tithe was an annual payment of an agreed proportion (originally one-tenth) of the yearly produce of the land, which was payable by parishioners to the parish church, to support it and its clergyman. He probably owned this land, but it was worked by someone else, some times the land was parceled up and more than 1 person worked on the land, so they would pay the Tithe to him each year.
Is your Thomas Crewe family connected with this Thomas Crewe Sir Thomas Crewe (or Crew) (1565–1634), of Stene in Northamptonshire, was an English Member of Parliament and lawyer, and served as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1623 to 1625.
What great work on that spidery writing, Steve: brilliant job! I'm glad I didn't have to do it I think it might say 'teathing barnes', which makes it sound like they were for teething . . . but I'm sure you're right it must mean tithing/tithe. As the barns mentioned in Thomas' will were at Upton/Stoke maybe one of them was this tithe barn still in the Crewe family later: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/rd/3156d9e9-0e4e-4718-b884-97ad5a107ee5 Re. the placenames the excellent Hawkesbury History website may help, particularly the first item in their 'Documents Index': http://www. hawkesburyhistory.org.uk/
Thank you so much Steve for your help. You have given me much more information then I had. I can see lots of work for me in the near future. I can tell you that William Crew/Crewe was a family name that has appeared in almost every generation of the family. My grandad and great grandad were both William Crew. Unfortunately my mam was an only child and she is the last in her line of the Crew family. My 5x great grandad Samuel Crew c1765 moved from Tetbury to Leeds and died c1840. He was married to Ann Cook 25/5/1761 of Tetbury.
Just been looking at the will of Thomas Crew 1551 that Steve managed to decipher. Has thrown up lots of questions. The main ones being what is the name of Thomas's brother? Is he still in Cheshire or did he also move with his family to Gloucestershire? Googled Visitation of Gloucestershire 1623. Only confirmed that Thomas was from Cheshire but no other information.
I can't see a suitable will for a possible brother in PCC or Goucestershire, but the latter (at least, those on Ancestry) probably start too late to be of use - I assume from Thomas' will that he was already dead by 1551. I don't know if Cheshire wills would help - the ones on FMP only start in the 1600s, so too late. It will be very hard to get further back than Thomas without suitable wills or land documents - but they are rare and hard to pin down Steve
Sorry, maybe I was a it vague. I meant that from the wording in Thomas' will that his brother was dead at the time it was written Steve
Steve, could the name Dyonyse be Dorothy? Have been looking at David Hale genealogy and he mentions Dorothy Crew.
Here is the name - it includes the capital "C" of her surname. I don't think you could make Dorothy from it. I'm quite happy with Dyonyse, although I don't think there is another capital D to compare it with Steve
I suppose the modern equivalent of Dyonyse/Dionyse/Dionys etc. would be Denise (the boy's name Dennis can be recorded as Dionysius in Latin documents). I wonder if Thomas Crewe's daughter Dyonyse is the person mentioned in Agnes Crewe's will as her 'doughter' Denys (or Donys?): At first I thought the surname was Sands. However, I can't see other examples of a 'd' written that way in the will: all the definite d's I've spotted are written with a straight, heavy diagonal stroke as the tail. The upward stroke in the mystery name may be a hook on an 'm', possibly indicating omission of a letter. So one possible reading is Som[e]s. I'm not at all certain though. Agnes also mentions another daughter, Margerie, whose surname is also not immediately obvious, but could be Walker.
It does look like Sands at first glance, but I think you're right about the 'd' - Somes or even Somers is a possibility. By the way, June, there is a tree on Ancestry (if you have access to it) that shows Thomas' father, another Thomas as being born in Crewe, Cheshire c1475 - I would take much of it with a pinch of salt as the owner seems to have confused the children of the 1552 Thomas and his son, Thomas, but there is much of interest there. It could be worth contacting the owner to see where his information came from Steve
Just had an e mail with the following information from Gloucestershire Archives. Can anyone decipher it for me? Manors of Great and Little Badminton; Great Badminton rectory ¶Includes deeds and settlements relating to these and other Boteler family manors and lands, 1415/16-1612; account [Fb 3/1] of fraud and deception relating to the Gloucestershire estates perpetrated on Nicholas Boteler of Gt. Badminton 'in his extreme sickness' by Arthur Crewe, 1609 [Eb 3/1(98); Fa 3/2; Fb 1/14; Fb 2/1,2; Fb 3/1; Fc 1/10] ¶Also includes conveyance of manors of Great and Little Badminton by Nicholas Boteler, Esq., of Gt. Badminton, to Edward, Earl of Worcester, 25 June, 1612 [Fb 1/14];grant by Arthur Crewe, Hawkesbury, gent., of court leet for manor of Lt. Badminton, 1614 [Fa 3/2]; conveyance of rectory of Gt. Badminton by Sir Thomas Freke and others to Sir Thomas Somerset, 20 Nov., 1618 [Fb 1/14]; rental of Gt. and Lt. Badminton manors, 1615 [Fb 3/12]; post-nuptial settlement of Sir Thomas Somerset (2nd son of Edward, Earl of Worcester) and Ellen, Countess Dowager of Ormonde and Ossory, 1617 [Fb 2/2]; mortgage of manors and rect [See also National Library of Wales 1394] 1415-1842
That just seems to be the beginning of this page about some Badminton Estate archives held at Gloucestershire Record Office. The Fa, Fb, Fc are presumably an earlier system of reference numbers but the documents are now catalogued as part of D2700/NC1/1 at Gloucestershire RO. It's hard to make sense of these very brief catalogue entries. For full details of what was happening you would need to consult the original documents at the record office, though the handwriting may well be difficult. There may be abstracts of some of the documents on that Hawkesbury History page I mentioned somewhere above: click on 'Documents Index' in the left-hand menu and then on the first item in the list that appears. Note that (a) the list is not in chronological order: use your web browser's find tool to pick up all references to the Crewes; (b) in this list items are given their Gloucestershire Record Office reference numbers, not old Fa/Fb/Fc numbers. You can find these references from the Gloucestershire RO online catalogue (e.g. by searching for Arthur Crewe; in the list of results, click on the blue number on the left to see what they call the 'Finding Reference'. The note about the National Library of Wales indicates that some other related records are held there. Perhaps their online catalogue will have details.
