Boston Surname Ancestry ResultsOur indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'boston'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 310 records (displaying 21 to 30): Single Surname Subscription | | | Buying all 310 results of this search individually would cost £1,782.00. But you can have free access to all 310 records for a year, to view, to save and print, for £100. Save £1,682.00. More... |
These sample scans are from the original record. You will get scans of the full pages or articles where the surname you searched for has been found. Your web browser may prevent the sample windows from opening; in this case please change your browser settings to allow pop-up windows from this site. Close Rolls
(1441-1447)
The close rolls of the 20th to 25th years of the reign of king Henry VI 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. There is also some material relating to Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the English possessions in France. BOSTON. Cost: £4.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| The English in France
(1448)
King Henry VI of England (one of the grandsons of Charles VI of France) claimed the throne of France (and quartered the fleurs-de-lis of France with the lions of England on the royal standard) as had his predecessors since Edward III, as descendants of Philip IV of France. The English had real power or influence in Brittany, Normandy, Flanders and Gascony, and actual possession of several coastal garrisons, in particular Calais, where the French inhabitants had been replaced by English. Henry VI came to the throne only seven years after his father had trounced the French at Agincourt; but his cousin, Charles VII, who became king of France in the same year, spent his long reign rebutting the English king's claim to his throne by territorial reconquest and consolidation. The English administration kept a series of records called the French Rolls. On these are recorded royal appointments and commissions in France; letters of protection and safe-conduct to soldiers, merchants, diplomats and pilgrims travelling to France from England and returning, and to foreign legations. There are also licences to merchants to export to the Continent, and to captains to transport pilgrims. As Henry VI's reign progressed, and the English grip on northern France loosened, the French Rolls also increasingly include entries concerning the ransoming of English prisoners.BOSTON. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Yorkshire Testators and Legatees
(1426-1466)
Wills and testaments from the diocese of York (Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Hexhamshire, Lancashire north of the Ribble, and southwest Westmorland) registered at York. Richmond and Southwell archdeaconries had their own lower probate jurisdictions, so the wills registered at York are predominantly from the East and West Ridings and the eastern part of the North Riding of Yorkshire. In theory, wills dealt with real property and testaments with personal property, but the distinction hardly applies in practice: most of these wills are in Latin, but some are in English. Being before the Reformation, they commonly start with benefactions to churches, chantries, chapels, &c., and with provisions for the burning of candles ('lights') and saying of masses.BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Oxfordshire Charters
(1470-1479)
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. BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Clergy, the religious and the faithful in Britain and Ireland
(1471-1484)
These are abstracts of the entries relating to Great Britain and Ireland from the Lateran and Vatican Regesta of pope Sixtus IV. Many of these entries relate to clerical appointments and disputes, but there are also indults to devout laymen and women for portable altars, remission of sins, &c. This source is particularly valuable for Ireland, for which many of the key government records of this period are lost. Many of the names in the text were clearly a puzzle to the scribes in Rome, and spelling of British and Irish placenames and surnames is chaotic. Sixtus IV was consecrated and crowned 25 August 1471 (the day from which his pontificate is dated) and died at Rome 12 August 1484. The extracts were made by J. A. Twemlow from Vatican Regesta dxlvi to dclxxxi and Lateran Regesta dccxiii to dcccxxxviii, and published in 1955. Not all the Lateran registers survive from this pontificate, but were still in existence in the 18th century, when indexes were compiled giving rubricelle, or brief summaries of the papal bulls; nor, indeed, have all these indexes now survived, but Twemlow added an appendix listing all the rubricelle relating to the British Isles extant for the reign of Sixtus IV.BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Norfolk Feet of Fines
(1307-1485)
Pedes Finium - law suits, or pretended suits, putting on record the ownership of land in Norfolk. These abstracts were prepared by Walter Rye.BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Landowners and tenants in London
(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.BOSTON. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Leicester
(1327-1509)
The Corporation of Leicester commissioned the publication (in 1901) of extracts from the borough archives of 1327 to 1509, edited by Mary Bateson. This volume brings together several important sources: a coroner's roll of 1327; the merchant gild rolls; tax returns; court rolls; rentals; mayoral accounts, &c. All the Latin and French texts are accompanied by English translations. Not all the tax rolls surviving for this period are printed: but full lists of names are given for tallages of 1336 (pp. 34-40); 1347-8 (69-71); and 1354 (93-99); subsidy rolls of 1492 (331-334) and 1497 (351-353); and a benevolence roll of 1505 (370-374). There is a calendar of conveyances (388-446), and a list of mayors, bailiffs, and other officials (447-462); and, finally, entrants into the merchant gild
from 1465 to 1510. Membership of the merchant gild was by right of inheritance (s. p. = sede patris, in his father's seat), or by payment of a fee called a 'bull' (taurus). Those marked * paid their bull, and were thus, by implication, not natives, or at least not belonging to gild merchant families. By 1400 membership of the gild merchant had become the equivalent of gaining freedom of the borough (being a free burgess): but thitherto the two were not necessarily the same, and some of the merchant gild members were not resident in the borough, merely traded there.BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Deacons Secular (1511)
The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield at this period included the whole of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire; all Lancashire south of the Ribble; northern Shropshire (including Shrewsbury); and northern Warwickshire (including Birmingham and Coventry). Ordinations took place on the four Ember Saturdays in the year, and on certain other occasions; lists of ordinands to the degrees of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest were preserved in the ordination registers, a distinction being made between those clerks who were 'regular', i.e., monks, friars, &c., and those who were 'secular', the main body of the clergy. All ordinands were celibate, and those regular, and the secular who obtained benefices, remained so, but only a minority of the secular ordinands ever obtained benefices, and most will doubtless have married later in life. No man might be ordained to subdeacon or higher without proving either that he was of independent means or that he was sponsored by an institution or a gentleman. Most entries in the register of such ordinations therefore have the words 'ad titulum' followed by the name of the religious house that was the sponsor. This is an important indication of the man's origins - boys whose families were monastic tenants, and who were educated by the monks, would naturally be sponsored by the abbey. Only men who were born and bred in the diocese could be ordained by the bishop, unless producing letters dimissory from the bishop of the diocese of their birth. These are the ordinations celebrated on Ember Saturday, 15 March 1511, by bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Longdon prebendal church.
BOSTON. Cost: £8.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Inhabitants of Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire
(1406-1535)
The Hospital of the Holy Cross was founded in 1269; in time this fraternity became a social and religious gild. 'The Register of the Gild of the Holy Cross, the Blessed Mary and St John the Baptist of Stratford-upon-Avon' was edited by J. Harvey Bloom, rector of Whitchurch, and printed in 1907. The register is a record of admissions to the gild, an account of the fines paid by new members, and the names of those in arrear. Each year's record usually starts on the Monday after Ascension Day (the sixth Thursday after Easter), when the new aldermen, master and proctors of the gild were elected, all duly named. Then follow the admissions to the gild, including payments for prayers and candles (lights) for the faithful dead; and the names of the sureties for these payments. Interspersed with this are occasional proclamations and memoranda concerning the fraternity. A peculiarity of this publication is that the years given at the head of each page (e. g. 1502-3) are those of the regnal year (in that case 18 Henry VII) in which the Monday after Ascension Day fell. The regnal years of Henry IV, Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VII all started after that day in the calendars of 1399, 1422, 1483 and 1485; so the gild registers during those years actually cover the following year to that shown in this printed text (in that case, 1503-4).
BOSTON. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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