This page contains some notes on families in West Devon whose origins we are researching. Some families we know more about than others, but we hope that by publishing this information here we can make contact and exchange data with people who can help to complete the picture. These families belong to the early period of our family history, where there may be few surviving records and often a lack of detail. We summarise below what we do know about them and what we want to find out.
Some of the names below are linked to the corresponding record in the on-line family tree. When you click on a link, the linked record will be displayed in a separate window. There you can see the family relationships as we understand them, together with notes on what we have found in parish registers, census returns and other records.
Our Skinner and Eastlake ancestors lived in or near Buckland Monachorum in the middle of the eighteenth century, but some aspects of their earlier history are uncertain. Our research so far has led us to construct the following partial family tree:
Pascho Eastlake and Joan Wecker (married 1684)
Samuel Eastlake (1693 - 1769) and Mary (buried 1772)
Ann Eastlake (1718 - 1803) and Arthur Skinner (buried 1784)
Rachel Skinner (1755 - 1817) and John Seccombe (1752 - 1828)
Arthur Skinner and Ann Eastlake were married in 1752 in Buckland Monachorum, and both were later buried there. We have been less successful in tracing their origins. We have not yet found a baptism record for Arthur Skinner, so he remains a mystery.
We know that Rachel Skinner inherited property from her grandfather Samuel Eastlake. This leads us to believe that Rachel's mother Ann Eastlake was baptised in 1718 in Tavistock, the daughter of Samuel and Mary Eastlake. We think that Samuel was the son of Pascho (or Paschal) Eastlake from Peter Tavy. Although we have found several other Eastlake references in the Tavistock and Buckland Monachorum area, we are not sure which of these are directly relevant to our family line.
Please contact Chris Warren if you feel that the family listed here is connected with your own research.
The Jordan family we are researching lived in the north-west of Devon, in the area around Holsworthy. We are interested in the following generations of people who bore this surname:
William Jordan and Margery Rudge (married 1677)
William Jordan (buried 1741/2) and Mary Haine (1696/7 - 1759)
John Jordan (1737 - 1812) and Joan Perkin (1735 - 1784)
Elizabeth Jordan (1765 - 1840) and James Gloyn (1758 - 1829)
William Jordan and Mary Haine were married in 1716 in Halwill, between Holsworthy and Okehampton. We have found the baptism of a William Jordan in Okehampton at the right time, but the registers for Halwill are incomplete, so we do not know if this was the same person. Later generations lived mainly in Holsworthy and other nearby parishes. The surname was spelt in several different ways, including Jurdon, Jerdon and Jordain. Elizabeth Jordan and James Gloyn were married in Pyworthy, but later moved to Plymouth.
Please contact Chris Warren if you feel that the family listed here is connected with your own research.