Gray Surname Ancestry ResultsOur indexes 1000-1999 include entries for the spelling 'gray'. In the period you have requested, we have the following 3216 records (displaying 91 to 100): Single Surname Subscription | | | Buying all 3,216 results of this search individually would cost £18,894.00. But you can have free access to all 3,216 records for a year, to view, to save and print, for £100. Save £18,794.00. 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. Landowners and tenants in Suffolk
(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.GRAY. Cost: £6.00.  | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Derbyshire Pedes Finium (1494)
Sales of land were registered by means of fictitious suits of covenant entered in the Common Pleas, the details of which were recorded in separate parchment indentures called Feet of Fines or Pedes Finium. This calendar gives an abstract of each deed: in most cases the seller is the deforciant, the purchaser is the plaintiff, and the land is described in the broadest terms, as so many messuages, tofts, gardens, acres of (arable) land, meadow, pasture, woodland, furze and heath, rents &c. The properties range from large manors to single houses or plots of land. The calendar is indexed by the surnames of sellers, purchasers and trustees.
GRAY. Cost: £8.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Officers and tenants of the Scottish crown
(1488-1496)
In 1887 the 10th volume of Rotuli Scaccarii Regum Scotorum, or The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, was published in Edinburgh as part of the Scottish Series of Chronicles and Memorials. The main text is a transcript in extended Latin, but with some passages reduced to an abstract in English (in italics), of the rolls of the Scottish royal exchequer from 19 June 1488 to 12 October 1496 (rolls cclxxviii to ccxcv, old numbers ccxciii to cccix). This more or less continuous series alternates between accounts of the Ballivi ad Extra (royal chamberlains, lessees of lordships, rangers of wards, receivers &c) and those of the Custumars (receivers of customary payments and similar revenues) and bailies (bailiffs) of burghs (boroughs). In all, they give a summary description of all these sources of royal revenue - and not only mention the payers and receivers in general, but also refer to many occasional payments to and receipts from individuals hardly otherwise found in the surviving records. An appendix (pages 629 to 763) of rentals of royal property throughout Scotland in the same period gives a rich harvest of personal names; and another (764-772), an Index in Libros Responsionum, lists persons to whom sasine (seisin) was granted in 1492 to 1496.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Servants of the Scottish crown
(1473-1498)
Under the direction of the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, the earliest Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, under the series Compota Thesauriorum Regum Scotorum, were abridged and published. This first volume, prepared by Thomas Dickson, curator of the Historical Department of the General Register House, was published in 1877. It contains the earliest surving accounts, from 1473 to 1474 in the reign of king James III, and the next, from 1488 to 1489 in the reign of king James IV. These were printed verbatim; but there then follow (page 166 onwards) accounts through to 1498 'considerably curtailed by the omission of unimportant entries'. These accounts are mostly lists of royal expenditure: many purchases of items for the court do not give the name of the merchants from whom they were bought, so the bulk of the personal names in the text are those of intermediaries, messengers, and various servants of the king.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Early records of Wells cathedral, in Somerset
(1001-1500)
Three early registers of the dean and chapter of Wells - the Liber Albus I (White Book; R I), Liber Albus II (R III), and Liber Ruber (Red Book; R II, section i) - were edited by W. H. B. Bird for the Historical Manuscripts Commissioners and published in 1907. These three books comprise, with some repetition, a cartulary of possessions of the cathedral, with grants of land dating back as early as the 8th century, well before the development of hereditary surnames in England; acts of the dean and chapter; and surveys of their estates, mostly in Somerset.GRAY. Cost: £6.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Derbyshire Pedes Finium (1501)
Sales of land were registered by means of fictitious suits of covenant entered in the Common Pleas, the details of which were recorded in separate parchment indentures called Feet of Fines or Pedes Finium. This calendar gives an abstract of each deed: in most cases the seller is the deforciant, the purchaser is the plaintiff, and the land is described in the broadest terms, as so many messuages, tofts, gardens, acres of (arable) land, meadow, pasture, woodland, furze and heath, rents &c. The properties range from large manors to single houses or plots of land. The calendar is indexed by the surnames of sellers, purchasers and trustees.
GRAY. Cost: £8.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Scotland and the Netherlands
(1492-1503)
Andrew Halyburton, a Scottish merchant resident at or near Middleburgh, one of the chief trading ports of the Netherlands, compiled this account book in which he lists his sales of Scottish produce and his purchases of products of the east and south at Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent. Each merchant with whom he traded was given a separate account in this ledger; sometimes he would copy the merchant's mark onto the page. The names that occur are thus largely thus of European merchants, from as far afield as Italy, Germany, Denmark, Osterland, Livonia, Norway, Sweden, Poland, France, Spain and Barbary. This book survived as 'a large and very old book, of what nature unknown' among the Promiscuous Account Books in the General Register House in Edinburgh. It was edited by C. Innes, and printed as the Ledger of Andrew Halyburton, Conservator of the Privileges of the Scotch Nation in the Netherlands 1492-1503' together with 'The Book of Customs and Valuation of Merchandises in Scotland 1612' at Edinburgh in 1867.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Yorkshire Testators and Legatees
(1484-1508)
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. This publication in 1869 by the Surtees Society as Testamenta Eboracensia iv is an edition by James Raine of selected wills from the period. Some additional material is included from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the York Dean and Chapter archives.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Recipients of grants of land by the Crown; and other grantors and grantees
(1427-1516)
Grants of land by the Crown were enrolled on the Charter Rolls: but this series of records was also used by other magnates and religious houses as a way of having their own deeds inspected, confirmed and registered. It will be seen from this that some of the material described in these inspeximuses dates back to a considerably earlier period. In addition, there is an appendix of fragments of charter roll material from 1215 and 1286 to 1288. The royal grants enrolled relate not only to land, but also to various privileges that were part of the royal prerogative.
Most of the material is from England, the remainder relating to Ireland, Wales and possessions in France, but virtually nothing from Scotland, which was an independent kingdom at this period.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
| Murderers sheltering in Durham Cathedral: and their victims
(1464-1524)
Criminals could evade pursuit by claiming sanctuary in Durham Cathedral. Persons who took refuge fled to the north door of the cathedral, and knocked for admission. There were two chambers over the door in which men slept, for the purpose of admitting fugitives at any hour of the night. As soon as anyone was so admitted, the Galilee bell was immediately tolled, to give notice that someone had taken sanctuary. The offender was required to declare before witnesses the nature of his offence, and to toll a bell in token of his demanding the privilege of sanctuary. He was then provided with a gown of black cloth with a yellow cross, called St Cuthbert's Cross, upon the left shoulder. A grate was provided near the south door to sleep upon, and for 37 days sufficient provisions and bedding were provided. But within 40 days he had to appear before the coroner, clothed in sackcloth, and be branded on his right hand with the sign of the letter A. This signified that he was swearing to abjure the realm: he was then free to leave the country unhindered. The petitions for immunity were entered in the diocesan registers, usually with the marginal note 'Peticio Immunitatis': those from 18 June 1464 to 10 September 1524 (the privilege was finally abolished in 1624) were edited and printed by the Surtees Society in 1837 under the title Sanctuarium Dunelmense. Some of the criminals came from a considerable distance: the great majority were murderers or homicides. Each entry usually gives full name, original address, (often) trade, a brief description of the crime, often with date, and usually the name of the victim, as well as the witnesses to the petition. This index covers all the surnames given.GRAY. Cost: £4.00. | Sample scan, click to enlarge
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