Pemberton's from Middleton, St. George Parish, Durham Co

The Encyclopedia of heraldry: or General armory of England, Scotland, and ... by John Burke, Sir Bernard Burke lists the following interesting comment:

Pemberton (Aislaby, co. Durham, A.D. 1595; derived from John Pemberton of Stanhope, living in 1400. The last male heir, William Pemberton, of Middleton St. George, esq. d. num. in 1801, when the representation of the family devolved on his cousin George Allen, of Blackwell Grange, esq. M.P. grandson of James Allen, of Blackwell Grange, esq. by Elizabeth his wife, dau. of William Pemberton, esq. who was great-grandson of John Pemberton, of Aislaby, esq. by Isabel Grey, his wife, granddau. of Sir Ralph Grey, of Chillingham, knt. The present representative of the Pemberton family is William Allan, of Blackwell Grange, esq.)

A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, 1848, states in regard to Middleton (St. George):

"MIDDLETON (St. George), a parish, in the union of Darlington, S. W. division of Stockton ward, S. division of the county of Durham, 6 miles (E. S. E.) from Darlington; containing 433 inhabitants. This parish, which is bounded on the south by the river Tees, comprises about 3100 acres, and includes the village of Middleton-One-Row and the hamlet of Oak-Tree; the surface is undulated, the soil clay. ..." This is about 80 miles north of Middleton, Manchester Co.

Diary of Samuel Pepys and Green Olives

Reviewing old emails about the Pemberton's gatepost sign, I saw a reference to Samuel Pepys [say peeps] a Londoner of renown who kept an extensive diary from 1660 to 1669. Today, Wikipedia says, "Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and subsequently King James II." The diary is being published a bit at a time. A search today found a reference to a Pemberton that should have been spelled Pembleton - a dance instructor.

King Charles II married a girl from Portugal

And what do they grow there if it isn't olives - "While olives are green and commodities rough, this is ..."

First Pemberton DNA Sample Submitted

Today I sent the first DNA sample (mine) to Family Tree DNA. Meanwhile, my brother informs me that he submitted a sample years ago to the Sorenson DNA lab so it will be fun to see how closely we match. We are all hoping that many others will join in the DNA data base for the Pemberton surname. The Family Tree DNA project for Pemberton is here.

Will of Sarah Pemberton 1696

... And my body I commit to the Earth to be decently buryed by my late dear husband Sir Matthias Pemberton ... We presume the preposition "by" means "beside" not "through the instrumentality of".

Will of John Pemberton, 1648

Proved in London, 18 February 1651 No connection visible there.

The Pickax Dream

In my dream (see post of March 26th), the pickax was buried up to the handle collar (the handle lying horizontal on the soil), sharp end down in a recently tilled farm field. It occurs to me that the field may represent Pemberton's hough, and that John Pemberton, blacksmith, of Thornton Hough, may have come into owership of George Pemberton's hough - thus the pick is in the hough. More likely, the pick is in Thornton Hough. The signature mark on the little bit of paper attached to the top end of the pick, must be that of someone linking this John to one of my George's.

I have completed the transcription of the Will of John Pemberton, Blacksmith, of Thornton Hough, 1664, proved 1669 and John gives his wife's name as Margery and his children as John, Robert, William, and Elline. John blacksmith must have been born between 1605 and 1635.

There is a family showing up in the baptisms in St Oswald, Chester, Cheshire of interest here. George Pemberton is the father of these children: George 1640, John 1642, Hester 1643, and Elizabeth 1644. Its about 12 crow miles from Chester to Thorton Hough, which is on the Wirral. Was this son John named after the blacksmith, an uncle maybe? I have to work this a bit. Maybe the father of George the first was a John?

The only record I have found of a Sarah Middleton, who married George Pemberton I, is in Nantwich, 1661, so this George baptised in 1640 would almost have to be George Pemberton the zeroeth, and his father George Pemberton the -1th (if they are indeed in the same lineage).

Will of George Pemberton, yeoman, Wallesey, 1685

Finished transcribing today. This will is of particular interest because although it does not mention a son George, it does mention a daughter in law Elizabeth making it a tantalizing candidate for the will of our George Pemberton I whose son George married Elizabeth Brooks. However, there is a serious problem because George II and Elizabeth had children in Virginia beginning in 1718, 33 years after this will.

Meeting with Dixie Pemberton

I had the distinct pleasure of spending the afternoon with Dixie, my wonderful collaborator in this research. We finally could talk face to face after all these months of working together. It was so great!!

Finding John Pemberton blacksmith's family

Examined the will of John Pemberton blacksmith 1664: wife Margery, children John, Robert, William, and Elline. Sorted the baptismal records of the parishes (both the Cheshire Parish Register Transcription Project and the familySearch christenings data I extracted a few months ago) and tried to identify this family - could not find them. Specifically, I could not find a John with even two of the four children named. This is an interesting "not find" because it seems to say something about the completeness of the records. I think I shall try to do this same thing with the George Pemberton wills and see what happens.

Started the Pemberton Surname Research Blog

Today I started the Pemberton Surname Research blog here: http://pembertonsurname.blogspot.com/

Decisions about Research

I have been away from this for a month and got back to it today at the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake City. In reviewing my data, I see the following in regard to the three sets of George son of George:

1. The George Pemberton, baptised in Marbury, 13 Feb 1685, shows a mother Alice, not Sarah. If I sort the thousands of names I have into families, I see this George and Alice had several children (her name appears with all these) between 1685 & 1700. The oldest child is George so this cannot be my family, even if there was a prior marriage. If George had a wife before Alice, and named a son George and he was still living, they would not have named one of Alice's sons George. If Alice's George died and was replaced by a son of a second wife (who would have to be Sarah), the earliest possible birth is 1702 which would make George 16 when he had his first child in Virginia. It just doesn't work.

2. The George christened 30 Sept 1661 at St Mary's in Chester, has only one sibling, Thomas, christened 13 Feb 1662, four and a half months later.

3. The George christened 3 May 1640 at St Oswald's in Chester, has four siblings, John, Hester, Elizabeth and Anna, christened in 1642, 1643, 1644, and 1646. This George is too old to be our George II but he could be our George I. (The scrapbook says George II named his daughters Ann, Judith and Sarah.) However, there is a George Pemberton fathering a family in this same parish a generation later with two children Martha and William christened in 1666 and 1668.

4. There are 17 George baptisms/christenings in the parish records of Cheshire between the earliest in 1596 and 1751. One third of these have no father information, one forth of them have a George father. Only one other christian name occurs more than once among these George christenings: Joseph (occurs twice).

Searching Perogative Court of Cantebury (PCC) Wills

At the Salt Lake City Genealogical Library today, looking for George Pemberton wills 1383 - 1857. Looked through films 0091811 and 0091812 and found Pemberton wills for Roger, 1713? (approx), Francis 1715, Edward 1717, Edward 1717, Mary 1718, Thomas 1719, and John 1719. On film 0091810 John 1703, Carolus Middleton 1705, Thomas Pemberton 1705 (which will I pulled and read - 7 pages wife Martha, location Northampton and places east of there), and Maria 1705. Ended at that point.

Registered Pemberton Surname for a One-Name Study

I joined the Guild of One-Name Studies a couple weeks ago and today took the plunge to register Pemberton and formalise what I had already started - the compilation of all the family history and genealogical data available relating to people with the Pemberton Surname. Luckily, there is no imposed deadline as to when this has to be completed.

My motivation is two-fold: first, I enjoy this sort of work, and extracting data in bulk somehow makes more sense to me than looking for one at a time (maybe a symptom of a vocational disease I contracted years ago), and second, and more important; I have been deeply impressed as I have researched the name and particularly as I have met distant cousins in England, with the kind of people they always seem to be: down to earth, honest, independent, driven by principle more than convenience, and religious. I think it can be a wonderful blessing to thousands of Pemberton, many yet unborn, to know what kind of people they come from and to understand the feelings that course through their hearts as they deal with the vicissitudes of life.

More Research at the Chester Record Office

We have read about 20 wills, including one of John Pemberton, blacksmith, where he puts his mark and it is a miner's pick axe! But the names in the will seem not to lead anywhere - at least not yet. In the afternoon, we visit find some Pemberton farms located outside Chester and visit with these good people. One of them, another John, and his mother Phyllis spend almost an hour chatting excitedly about their family history. They had spent many days in London, years ago, tracking down everything they could on the Pemberton's in general and their particular ("the John, Thomas, Henry branch") line in detail. We show them the first page of the old George M Pemberton scrapbook and read it together. John begins immediately to talk about the "George branch of the family, the one that went to America. They were the youngsters, you know, didn't inherit any land, so - " We suggest that the part about the King having a tiff with George was probably a fable and John interrupts and seems to demand that we understand that the Pembertons and Charles II were engaged in several transactions, some of which were not friendly. He is adamant that the old scrapbook is probably correct on this point.