Humphrey Keam - Ann Hawken/Hocking/Hoskins - Jane Pascoe Research Issues

by Wesley Johnston

begun 2 Sep 2010 (last revised 13 Jun 2013 - add Keam-Pascoe URL)

I have searched the Luxulyan baptisms, marriages and burials for 1711-1771, and what I have found leaves open questions.

The baptisms relate the child to the parents but do not give the mother's maiden name. The marriages show only the names of the husband and wife. The burials show only the name of the person buried and sometimes show age. So connecting people via isolated records is difficult. A thorough database of all the people would be helpful, but even that would probably still leave some unanswered questions. Expanding the database to include neighboring parishes would certainly help. But in the absence of such lineage-linked databases, I must deal with the records that I have found and try to make the best sense of them.

 There are two marriages for Humphrey Keam, one in 1748 to Ann Hawken (CFHS database transcription) or Hocking or Hoskins (other possible readings of the faint text) and one in 1752 to Jane Pascoe. I do believe that this is the same Humphrey Keam and that Ann died in 1752, due to childbirth complications from the birth of their daughter Mary, and then Humphrey remarried, with Jane.

However, from the existing records that I found, it is impossible to say this with certainty.

The records that exist for 1747-1752 are these:

1747 Jan 24 - Robert Keam buried

1748 Dec 10 - Humphrey Keam marries Ann Hawken/Hocking/Hoskins

1751 Jun 8 - William Keam buried

1752 Jun 4 - infant Mary Keam is buried

1752 Jul 26 - Humphrey Keam marries Jane Pascoe (familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-11664-20276-16)

I think that the 1747 Robert and 1751 William burials were of adults, so that they are not part of the two family groups in question here, though they could be if William was actually a child of Humphrey.

In looking at all the baptisms from 1748 to 1771 (the end of the volume), there are none in which the parents are Humphrey and Ann. However, it was the practice with infants who died to show them only when they were buried. Thus it is likely that the Mary buried 4 Jun 1752 was the daughter of Humphrey and Ann.

There is no burial record for Ann however.

The absence of any further references to Ann and the marriage 26 Jul 1752 of Humphrey and Jane lead me to believe that Ann did in fact die at about the same time as the infant Mary and that Humphrey then remarried.

The fact that there are no baptisms of children of Humphrey and Ann could mean that they left the parish and that there were two Humphreys. I cannot rule this out. But I am assuming that Ann died and that the 1848 Humphrey and the 1852 Humphrey are one and the same.