“Later” – the Surrey Will Abstracts

Have you ever noticed how flexible the word “later” can be?

The Surrey Will abstracts contained 66 Parry entries, plus a few variant spellings, although some of these were duplicate indexing of the same items. I ended up noting 71 individual names, derived from 45 Wills, only 5 of which related to Parry testators. Out of the others, 26 had Parrys as a witness, or just as a name with no further details, so there was insufficient information to do more with those for now. I was hopeful that the other 19 would be “connectable” in some way, since there were relationships given, but searching for connections produced mixed results. The Will of Andrew Tremills (or Tremetts) was the best – this links in with 5 entries from the Parry Abstracts book and, although I had worked out the likely relationships between those people, Andrew’s confirms the details and gives me his daughter’s maiden name - not that I can find the marriage of a Whitney Parry to a Tremills/Tremetts, but that’s another issue.

Of the other abstracts:
Edward Jones of Bermondsey mentions deeds which are with John Parry, exec. of (Mr) Samuel Loyd – and an abstract of a Samuel Lloyd’s Will appears in the Parry Abstracts book. Unfortunately, the executor of Samuel’s Will was a Charles Parry, but he does have a brother John, so it still looks promising.
In 1696, Mary Nobes of St Saviour Southwark left money to her son-in-law Roger Ingram, and her granddaughter, Hannah Parry, wife of Samuel Parry, and I can find a marriage between a Samuel Parry and Hanna Ingram on the IGI in 1693.
Elizabeth Collins of St Olave Southwark 1682 left her best holland apron and cambric handkerchief to Penelope Parry, wife of Thomas Parry of St Olave Southwark, gentleman. She also left the rest of her estate to Richard Parry, Thomas Parry and William Parry at 21. No relationships were given. However, a Thomas Parry of St Olave, with a wife Penelope, does appear in the Parry Abstracts. They only have a son Thomas, but he mentions children of his siblings (without naming the children). So just hints at connections there, with a lot more to investigate. One key point for me is that the siblings are late of Breconshire, so here we are dealing with the gradual spread of the Parry families away from my main area of interest to elsewhere in the country.

Finally, I was interested to see that both the Surrey Abstracts and the Parry Abstracts book contain an abstract for Knevet Parry of St Olave, which was proved in 1603 – and that there are differences between the two abstracts even on the witnesses’ names. So often with a one-name study, it is easier to deal with secondary sources, since they are more accessible, but this is a reminder of the importance of checking the original records wherever possible.

So that’s the Surrey Abstracts - and the “update on where things are at with the study” will have to wait until “later.”