Anne Came's Higman Grandchildren in her 1678/9 Will

Research note by Wesley Johnston - Begun 14 Jun 2015, last updated 18 Jun 2015

Thanks to Ronald Keam of New Zealand for transcribing the will and to Helen Keam Sage of Australia for sending me Ron's transcription.

Note that in my tree, I use only new style (Gregorian) dates in the date field, since they are used in calculations. For old style (Julian) dates from 1 Jan to 24 Mar, I note the dates with a slash in the event notes field: e.g. 3 Mar 1654/5 will be recorded in the date field as 3 Mar 1655 and noted in the event field notes as 1654/5.

Background

Anne CAME wrote her will 2 Feb 1678/9 at St Austell, Cornwall. Among her heirs, she listed her seven HIGMAN grandchildren: grandsons Richard, John, L. B. and Andrew and granddaughters Elizabeth, Jane and Anne. Presumably the children's mother, who must have been Anne CAME's daughter had already died, since she is not mentioned in the will.

So who was Anne CAME's daughter who became the mother of the HIGMAN children? And who was her husband?

Who was Anne CAME's daughter who became the mother of the HIGMAN children?

We are fortunate to have the marriage and baptismal records that appear to give the answer to this question. They are all at St. Austell.

Anne HORE/HOARE married John CAME/CEAME 2 Apr 1627. The image of the parish register page can be seen at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11110-176457-0

The same register contains the baptisms of their first two children:

- Jane CEAME was baptized 1 Jun 1627 - https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-22654-12904-63

- John CAME was baptized 7 Nov 1630 - https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12710-0

Note that the images for all three events are included in the image collection once in a numbered page image and three times each in an un-numbered page image.

The fact that none of the other families of Anne CAME's children in her will are as numerous as the HIGMAN family is evidence that the daughter who became the mother of the HIGMAN children was one of the first children of John and Ann (HORE) CAME. There was only one other daughter included in the will: Honour, wife of Henry HELLYER, of Liskeard. And there are no other grandchildren through Anne's daughters in her will.

So it seems very likely that Jane CAME/CEAME was the daughter who became the mother of Anne's HIGMAN grandchildren.

Who was the father of the HIGMAN children?

There are no HIGMAN-CAME/CEAME marriage records of this period in the indexes on the Cornwall Family History Society research database, the Cornwall Online Parish Clerks database.

Julia Mosman, OPC for St Austell, does have indexes of the marriages in these volumes on her very important web site "St. Austell, Cornwall Area Genealogy and Historical Website" (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~staustell/index.htm). If you click on the "Genealogy" link, you find the places indexed. For the baptisms, she notes that some years are missing due to the English Civil War (which was 1642-1651), which could be the reason that there is no marriage record, since Jane CAME would have been 15-24 years old at that time, so that this is the period when she would most likely have married. There are no marriages for 1641-1646 and just one for 1647. 1648 appears normal, with 15 marriages, but there is only one marriage in 1649. 1650 has only five marriages and 1651 only five. Then there are none for 1652-1655, one each for 1655 and 1656, none for 1657, one for 1658, none for 1659 and 1660. Normalcy appears to have returned in 1661 and thereafter.

So in the absence of a lost marriage record, the baptisms of the children are the next best place to look. There are baptismal records for children of the right names -- although not all 7 of them. The Cornwall OPC St Austell baptisms have no entries before 1681. The CFHS research database has no St Austell baptism prior to 1698. This is frustrating because FamilySearch has the images of two volumes of St Austell Baptisms, Marriages and Burials prior to this: one for 1564-1631 (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11110-174127-25) and one for 1632-1695 (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11110-174212-75). So the records clearly exist but are not in either of the two main online Cornwall indexes.

But once again, the "St. Austell, Cornwall Area Genealogy and Historical Website" has what the other two online sources do not: indexes to the baptisms in these two parish registers.

So we are looking for baptisms from about 1645 onward for HIGMAN boys named Richard, John, L. B. and Andrew and girls named Elizabeth, Jane and Anne. And we know that those up to 1651 may not survive, due to the civil war. Since we do not know when Jane CAME married Mr. HIGMAN, I will start with a big net and look for any HIGMAN children with the seven names born between 1645 (when Jane CAME turned 18) and 1678 (the year - in the old style - at whose end Anne CAME signed her will).

HIGMAN Baptisms at St Austell

I will begin by working from the St. Austell website indexes, where I will accept spelling variants. In chronological order, here are the baptisms of children with the names (or possible variants) of the seven HIGMAN children. (Format is YYYY-MMM-DD or YYYY-MM-DD, where the month number MM is as written in the index.) One caveat in advance: there was more than one John HIGMAN having children baptized in this period. And there were two Janes having children as well.

1648-08-06 - Jone daughter of Peter HIGMAN

1650-Jul-05 - Jone daughter of Matthew HIGMAN

1650/1-Feb - Elizabeth daughter of Philip HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12543-89)

1651-Jul - John son of John HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12543-89)

1653/4-Jan-08 - Luke son of John HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12584-60)

1656-Aug-16 - Elizabeth daughter of John HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-22654-12723-88)

1662-Apr-12 - Elizabeth daughter of John and Anne HIGMAN

1665/6-Jan-27 - Elizabeth daughter of William and Anne HIGMAN

1666-May-08 - Anne daughter of John and Jane HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-13480-57) (Index has Anna, but name is written as Anne)

1669-Mar-27 - Jane daughter of John and Jane HIGMAN (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12550-86)

1670-Mar-26 - Elizabeth daughter of Hugh and Thomasine HIGMAN

1670-Apr-13 - Elizabeth daughter of William and Mary HIGMAN

1673-Aug-03 - John son of Mathew and Julia HIGMAN

1674-Nov-26 - Elizabeth daughter of Marke and Jane HIGMAN

1674-Dec-28 - Anne daughter of Peter HIGMAN

1675/6-Mar-08 - Elizabeth (apparently with sister Jullyan on same date) daughter of Mathew HIGMAN

1678-Jul - Richard son of Peter HIGMAN

1678-Dec 28 - Jane daughter of Marke HIGMAN

Gaps in St Austell Baptisms

Note that there are significant gaps in multiple periods of baptism registration. Here are the annual counts of baptisms from 1632 to 1684 (based on the indexes and not confirmed from the actual registers unless noted):

1632-33

1633-60

1634- 0

1635- 0

1636- 0

1637-35

1638-38

1639- 0 (confirmed - https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-13650-63 AND https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-13536-56)

1640-43

1641- 0 (confirmed - https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12508-84 - the only baptisms between 1640 and 1648, exclusive, are those born away from St Austell who are recorded after the 1651 entries on https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-12543-89 where these singleton entries are in order 1645, 1646, 1648, 1650, 1653, 1655, 1657, 1661, 1647, 1649. 1652, and then one year obscured by the clamp used during microfilming)

1642- 0 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1643- 0 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1644- 0 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1645- 1 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1646- 1 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1647- 0 (confirmed - see 1641 confirmation above)

1648-38

1649- 0

1650-50

1651-24

1652-27

1653-30

1654-18

1655-40

1656-20 (confirmed - no baptisms between 16 Sep 1656 and 30 May 1657, exclusive) (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-22654-12723-88)

1657-13 (confirmed - no baptisms between 16 Jul and 10 Oct, exclusive)

1658- 7 (confirmed - only one baptism between 5 Apr and 26 Jan, exclusive)

1659- 2 (confirmed)

1660- 5 (confirmed - none from 12 Jan to 2 Sep, exclusive; one undated Oct 1660 baptism follows 18 Mar)

1661-31

1662-55

1663-66

1664-66

1665-48

1666-50

1667-62

1668-56

1669-40

1670-62

1671-44

1672-61

1673-61

1674-38

1675-43

1676-49

1677-53

1678-92

1679- 9

1680-49

1681-64

1682-62

1683-61

1684-78

Putting the HIGMAN families back together from the Baptisms

So, putting potential families together, which families match with the most names? Here are the descending numbers of matches, grouped by the father's name and then by wife:

Hugh - 1 (1670 Elizabeth)

Marke - 1 (1678 Jane)

Mathew - 3 (1650 Jone, 1673 John by Julia, 1675/6 Elizabeth - probably at least 2 different Mathews)

Peter - 3 (1648 Jone, 1674 Anne, 1678 Richard - probably at least 2 different Peters)

Philip - 1 (1650/1 Elizabeth)

John (no wife given) - 3 (1651 John, 1653/4 Luke, 1656 Elizabeth)

John (Anne) - 1 (1662 Elizabeth)

John (Jane) - 2 (1666 Anne, 1669 Jane)

William (Anne) - 1 (1665/6 Elizabeth)

William (Mary) - 1 (1667 Elizabeth)

While the Mathew and Peter lists are the longest, both are probably for at least two Mathews and two Peters, based on the wide gap in baptismal years between the first and second children in each list.

A big question is who was the mother of the three children of John for whom no wife was given? There is also a need to double check that the 1662 Elizabeth's mother really was given as Anne and not Jane. And were the marriage records of any of the most numerous ones preserved?

HIGMAN Marriage Records at St Austell

I will look at the marriages first.

Only two HIGMAN marriage records for the period 1616-1649: Walter To Alicia PERKYN in 1616 and William to Sus CARLYON in 1648. Only one survives in the 1650-1672 period: William to Henry (Henrietta?) STEPHENS. So none of the families with the most numerous child name matches has a surviving marriage record in St Austell.

Next, let's check to see if the mother in the 1662 Elizabeth baptism was really Anne, and it was: https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-22654-12724-61

So there were definitely two different John HIGMAN families - John and Jane and John and Anne. So we cannot really be certain which couple were the parents in the baptisms that simply showed the father as John HIGMAN. Since one of those three was an Elizabeth (1656), it is possible that this Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Jane. But it is just as possible that she was the daughter of John and Anne who named their 1662 daughter with the name Elizabeth after the first one died.

HIGMAN Burial Records at St Austell

And this leads to the HIGMAN burials in the same 1645-1678 period. Here are the burials, in chronological order (from the St Austell web page indexes):

1651-Jul-04 - Elizabeth wife of Peter

1651-Sep-21 - Mathew

1651/2-Mar-12 - Jane daughter of John

1655-Jul-12 - Luke (since child burials were usually noted with their father's name, this was probably an adult and not the child Luke baptized 1653/4)

1661-Aug-2 - Walter

1661-Oct-22 - Joane

1662-Nov-02 - Susan

1663/4-Feb-19 - Thomas son of Mathew

1666/7-Jan-30 - Thomazine daughter of John

1670-Jun-15 - Dorothy daughter of Peter

1670-Jul-12 - Mathew

1672-Nov-06 - Marke

1676-Apr-19 - Marye daughter of William

1677-Sep-27 - Jane wife of John (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1951-22654-14951-87)

1677-Dec-26 - William

1677/8-Feb-23 - Jane

1678-May-12 - Jerom

1678/9-Mar-11 - Jane wife of Marke (after the will was written)

I included the last one, even though it was after the will, since it was one of the two HIGMAN wives named Jane. The fact that Anne CAME did not mention her daughter Jane in her will, when she does mention her other daughter Honour and does mention all of Jane's children, is strong evidence that Jane CAME pre-deceased her mother. And the only one of the two Jane HIGMAN wives who died before Anne CAME wrote her will was Jane the wife of John HIGMAN.

Conclusion

It is impossible with only the parish registers and the will to be certain. But the following conclusions, with varying weights of confidence, seem to be supported by the evidence.

The husband of Jane CAME was John HIGMAN. The strongest evidence for this is that John's wife was the only one of the two Jane HIGMAN wives to have died by the time Anne CAME wrote her will. The evidence is also stronger in the baptisms, where Marke HIGMAN's wife Jane had only one child with the name of one of the seven HIGMAN children named in Anne CAME's will, while John and Jane HIGMAN had two and possibly as many as five children whose names matched those of the HIGMAN children named in Anne CAME's will.
The Jane HIGMAN, wife of John, buried 27 Sep 1677, seems likely to have been Jane CAME, who would have been 50 years old.
The 1666 Anne and 1669 Jane, daughters of John and Jane HIGMAN, are probably the Jane and Anne HIGMAN in Anne CAME's will.
The 1651 John, 1653/4 Luke and 1656 Elizabeth, whose father was John HIGMAN may be the John, L. B. and Elizabeth HIGMAN children name in Anne CAME's will. I am going to carry them this way in my tree -- but with a note to read this research note, since it is not at all certain. Clearly, this leaves a gap of 10 years between the 1656 Elizabeth and the 1666 Anna, which is justifiable cause for concern. There were significant gaps in baptismal registration, including 1658-1660 and possible a few prior and later years.
No baptisms for Richard and Andrew HIGMAN, other than the Jul 1678 baptism of Peter's son Richard, exist. There is no certainty that Anne CAME listed the sons in birth order in her will. But if she did, then Richard may have been the oldest child overall and born during about 1649 when record keeping was sparse, apparently due to the civil war. Andrew may have been born during the 10 year gap between Elizabeth in 1656 and Anna in 1666.
It is possible that one or more children died as infants. In particular, the 12 Mar 1651/2 burial of Jane HIGMAN the daughter of John and the 30 Jan 1666/7 burial of Thomazine HIGMAN the daughter of John may have been children of Jane CAME. There may have been more, since both the baptismal records and the burial records have gaps.

Thus I am including Jane CAME as the wife of John HIGMAN, married about 1648, with the following children:

- Richard - about 1649

- John - baptized 30 Jul 1651

- L. B. / Luke - baptized 8 Jan 1653/4

- Elizabeth - baptized 16 Aug 1656

- Andrew - about 1660

- Anne - baptized 8 May 1666

- Jane - baptized 27 Mar 1669

I am not claiming that this is all correct. There is a great deal of uncertainty. This is the best configuration that fits the evidence I have available. If new evidence conflicts with this configuration, then I will examine the new evidence and make conclusions after that evaluation.