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Melkesham Surname Ancestry Results

Our indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'melkesham'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 9 records (displaying 1 to 9): 

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Feet of Fines at Westminster: Wiltshire Cases (1198)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land. This transcript of the feet of fines of the '9th' year of the reign of king Richard I (3 September 1197 to 2 September 1198) was published by the Pipe Roll Society in 1898. The form of these proceedings is fairly standard: giving the date, the place of the hearing, and the names of the justices; the names of the plaintiffs (petentes) and defendants (tenentes) and a brief description of the land in question; the outcome of the case is a quitclaim by one party to the other, with a payment of a suitable sum. These cases were heard at Westminster: the original roll misdates the fines in the justices' eyre to the 9th rather than the 10th year of the reign, and this error may also relate to those at Westminster. In the printed copy the dates given in the margin may be 1197 where they should read 1198, or 1198 where they should read 1199, and may also be 1 or more days out.

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Feet of Fines at Westminster: Wiltshire Cases
 (1198)
Curia Regis Rolls (1196-1201)
The Curia Regis, king's court, of mediaeval England took cases from throughout the country, and its records are among the most important surviving from this early period.

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Curia Regis Rolls 
 (1196-1201)
Curia Regis Rolls (1210-1212)
The Curia Regis, king's court, of mediaeval England took cases from throughout the country, and its records are among the most important surviving from this early period.

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Curia Regis Rolls 
 (1210-1212)
Fine Rolls (1216-1246)
The fine rolls of the 1st to 30th years of the reign of king Henry III record part of the government administration in England. These excerpts from the rolls list in transcript applications by plaintiffs for various writs (such as 'ad terminum' and 'pone') and for assizes to be held by the justices in eyre to look into their grievances. A fine of half a mark (6s 8d) or a mark (13s 4d) was usually levied; the cases are normally identified by county, and record that the appropriate sheriff had been notified. There are also more extensive records, in which more detail is given. The excerpts were made by the Record Commission and printed in 1835.

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Fine Rolls
 (1216-1246)
Oxfordshire Charters (1250-1259)
A large accumulation of documents preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, formerly constituted the antiquarian collections of Anthony a Wood, Roger Dodsworth, Ralph Thoresby, Thomas Martin of Palgrave, Thomas Tanner bishop of St Asaph, Dr Richard Rawlinson, Richard Furney archdeacon of Surrey, and Richard Gough. A calendar of these was prepared by William H. Turner and published in 1878 under the title 'Calendar of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library'. The word 'charters' is here used in a rather loose sense, including virtually any manuscript or copy of a manuscript, but the bulk of the contents consists of mediaeval deeds of conveyance. Turner's calendar deals with each briefly, naming the principal parties and the nature of the deed, but hardly ever lists the witnesses. Many of these charters were undated (dating of deeds did not become general until around 1350) or so damaged or defective ('mutilated' is Turner's usual description) as no longer to display a legible date. However, he contrived, from the style of the script and/or the nature of the contents, to estimate dates in such cases. The sample scan is from the start of the Bedfordshire list.

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Oxfordshire Charters
 (1250-1259)
Yorkshire Inquisitions (1275-1295)
Inquisitions post mortem are inquiries as to the real estate and heir of each person holding in capite or in chief, i. e. directly, from the Crown, or whose estates had been escheated or were in ward. The age and relationship of the heir are usually recorded. Inquisitions ad quod damnum enquired as to any activities (including maladministration by local officials) that had resulted in any material loss to the Crown. Proofs of age are inquiries into the precise date of birth of an heir, usually involving local inhabitants recalling those circumstances which fixed that date in their mind. Yorkshire inquisitions for this period were edited by William Brown for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, and printed in 1898. This index covers all names mentioned, including jurors, tenants, &c.

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Yorkshire Inquisitions 
 (1275-1295)
Close Rolls (1302-1307)
The close rolls of the 31st to 35th years of the reign of king Edward I, that is to the day of his death (7 July 1307), record the main artery of government administration in England, the orders sent out day by day to individual officers, especially sheriffs of shires: they are an exceptionally rich source for so early a period. In amongst this official material, the rolls were also used as a way of recording many acknowledgments of private debts and contracts between individuals. Most of the contents relate to England, but there are also entries concerning Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the English possessions in France.

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Close Rolls
 (1302-1307)
Landowners and tenants in Dorset (1345-1485)
Inquisitions ad quod damnum were held by the appropriate sheriff or escheator (or other officer in whose bailiwick the matter in question might lie) to investigate cases in which the royal or public interest might be damaged by proposed alienation or settlement of land (especially alienation to religious uses, into mortmain). The key findings from these inquisitions were as to the tenure of the land and the service due from it; its yearly value; the lands remaining to the grantor, and whether they sufficed to discharge all duties and customs due from him; and whether he can still be put upon juries, assizes and recognitions, so that the country be not burdened by his withdrawal from them. Generally speaking, this process had the makings of a system of licensing such alienations, and raising money in proportion to the valuations. Equally, there are many items that deal with subjects such as the closing of public roads, the felling or inclosing of woods, or the proposed grant of liberties or immunities. A calendar of these inquisitions from the 19th year of the reign of king Edward III to the 2nd year of Richard III was prepared by the Public Record Office and published in 1906. We have now indexed this calendar by surname and county. Most of the individuals appearing in the calendar are either pious individuals seeking to make grants to religious bodies for the sake of their souls; or landowners securing the disposition and settling of their real estate. But some other names do appear - tenants, trustees, chaplains and clerks.

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Landowners and tenants in Dorset
 (1345-1485)
Somerset testators and legatees (1501-1530)
Somerset was almost coextensive with the diocese of Bath and Wells, which exercised local probate jurisdiction through its consistory and archdeaconry courts: but superior to the diocese was the province of Canterbury. Somerset testators who also had property outside the county had their wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). The Somerset Record Society embarked on a program of publishing genealogical abstracts of the registered copy wills of Somerset testators in the PCC archives, and in 1903 (volume xvi) printed abstracts edited by the Reverend F. W. Weaver from the PCC registers 1501-1503 (register Blamyr), 1504-1506 (Holgrave), 1506-1508 (Adeane), 1508-1511 (Bennett), 1511-1514 (Fetiplace), 1514-1517 (Holder), 1517-1520 (Ayloffe), 1520-1522 (Maynwaryng), 1523-1525 (Bodfelde), 1525-1528 (Porch) and 1529-1530 (Jankyn). In addition, the volume includes abstracts of 48 Somerset copy wills in the registers of the Archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace Library from 1363 to 1491. The heading of each abstract gives the year of making the will (not the year of probate) and the testator's name in bold. Below that is the quire number and name of the PCC register. Date and details of probate are given at the foot of each abstract. Spellings of surnames are preserved as they appear in the registered copy wills, and may vary within a single document.

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Somerset testators and legatees
 (1501-1530)

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