William Budd – lineage solved?

I first started my Budd Family history in 2007.  That’s approaching 9 years of research.  All along, where William Budd came from has been a total mystery.

I think I’ve solved it.

As always, the small but focused community of researchers have helped enormously.  I was particularly intrigued by a theory put forward by the authoritative Margaret Rose, who posited that the witness to William Hayward Budd’s marriage (William H was William snr’s eldest son), Thomas Budd, was not WH’s brother (Thomas Hayward), but possibly William Snr’s brother.  Margaret’s rationale was that the signature of the witness did not match that of TH Budd.  That takes some spotting, given the flowery signatures that were so common at that time (1798), and to me, frankly, all look to be by the same hand.

That got me thinking.

My own contribution to the puzzle (see earlier post on William Budd’s lineage 15 Aug 2015) was that when William married Ann Hayward, they were first to be found in the London borough of Southwark.  Their first child, predictably called William, sadly died an infant and was buried there aged 5 months in July 1776.  My theory was that it was no coincidence that there was a Samuel Budd (married to Anne Dredge) in the same parish at that time.  Seemed too good to be coincidental – so here was another relative, perhaps a brother or a cousin?

To cut a long story short, it would appear that both theories are correct.  Through building a number of ‘what might be’ family trees, eventually the connections can be made.  What makes it hard, and therefore explains why it’s been so elusive until now, is that the common connection between Thomas (signatory to William Hayward’s wedding), Samuel (in Southwark at the time of the birth of William and Ann’s first child) and William himself can only be determined by tracing back 2 earlier generations – to their commonly shared Grandparents.

Here’s how it looks:

And here’s that all-important signature of ‘Uncle Thomas’.

I have to admit I’m just a little excited so I’m dashing this off perhaps sooner than I should.  For those who will be keen to fact-check (and I hope you will!), the common thread is Quainton, Buckinghamshire.  That’s where the Budd’s came from – about 35 miles North West of Uxbridge.

By reference to the chart above, you can see Samuel, living in Southwark when the sick infant William Hayward was born, is William’s cousin, and that Thomas, as Margaret Rose suspected, is William’s brother and witnesses (the second-born William Hayward) William Hayward’s marriage, as WH’s uncle.

It works.  Perfectly.

I need to get the records, but I think we have it.

Readers, let me know what you think.

William Budd’s lineage

With William Budd’s death now pretty much resolved (see my earlier Blog on this topic), I have turned my attention to William’s birth and his immediate family.  This seems to be a little harder to pin down.

One lead appears to be that when William and Ann had their first son, William Hayward in the parish of George the Martyr, Southwark in early 1776, there was another Budd, Samuel, living in the same parish (he and his wife Ann Dredge had five children in that parish from 1776 – 1787).  It seems significant that two Budds were living in the same parish – that they were related seems to be a hypothesis worth exploring.  I haven’t had any luck to date!

Interestingly, William and Ann’s marriage certificate cites him as being from the Diocese of London, and says that he was also a widower.  Again, no further clues unearthed on this thread to date.

That William came from London and had his first child there makes me think that he was a Londoner and was perhaps born there (as opposed to Gloucester, where he married Ann in her parish, and Wiltshire, where so many of his children ended up living out their years, and where I believe he lived in the latter part of his life from 1801 until his death in 1821, again, see my previous blog on this).

Margaret ROSE has commented elsewhere on this Blog that there’s a witness to William Hayward Budd’s marriage to Mary Packer called Thomas Budd.  Margaret’s view is that the signature is not that of WHB’s brother Thomas Hayward Budd, and her hypothesis is that this could be an uncle – William Budd Snr’s brother.

Interestingly, there is a William (b 1744, 2 years adrift from the believed birth date of our William Snr) and a Thomas, both with the same parents (William and Eleanor Budd) born in Quainton, Bucks – so this could be a lead worth following up.

To date, nothing definitive…any clues welcome!