Moore of Motcombe - part 4

Brothers William and John Moore had an Uncle James Bartley (see Moore of Motcombe - part 3).  Exactly how was this uncle related?

• Father's brother?  No - their father was William Moore and his brother would share that surname.
• Mother's brother?  No - their mother was Anna/Hannah Parsons and her brother would share that surname.
• Father's sister or mother's sister was Aunt Bartley?  Most likely.  (Less likely would be that someone had an unexpected surname, different from the other members of their family.)

So what was the birth name of Aunt Bartley, wife of Uncle James Bartley?  The events we are learning about took place before civil registration so we are relying on church parish registers.  I am very thankful that the registers for baptisms, marriages and burials have been transcribed and are freely available on the internet (Dorset OPC (Online Parish Clerk) Motcombe).  Another advantage is that the extended family stayed in the same parish for many years.

From the Parish of Motcombe register transcriptions (Marriages 1672 - 1836 and Baptisms 1753 - 1812) we can see that:

• James Bartlett married Harriet Parsons (Nov 1806).
• Harriet Parsons (baptised Dec 1780) was the daughter of Joseph and Mary Parsons.
• Anna Parsons (baptised May 1775) was also the daughter of Joseph Parsons (register only shows father's name at that time).

Also,

• James and Harriet/Hariot had a son Walter Bartley (baptised Nov 1807) and a son Stephen Bartlett (baptised May 1809).

Selected family members related to John Moore and his Uncle James Bartley

So the relationship between nephews and Uncle can be established from the parish registers - with the acceptance that Anna and Hannah are the same person, Harriet, Harriot and Hariot are different spellings for the same name, as well as Bartley and Bartlett being variants for the same family name.

Moore of Motcombe - part 3

Having searched the internet for three keywords and found a prize clue (see Moore of Motcombe - part 2), I tried the same approach again, reviewing internet search results for a new combination of three words - Moore Motcombe Methodist.  My emotional high went up another level as I read, "John was born on 16 November 1807 at Motcombe to parents William and Anna. He was converted in November 1826 whilst attending a service at his uncle James Bartley’s farmhouse." (Moore, John (1807-1875)).

My great-great-grandfather William Moore had been baptised in 1805 in Motcombe to William and Anna, making him the older brother of this John Moore, Methodist convert.

A little more digging in the fertile swathes of the internet led me to a detailed biographical article about Rev John Moore.  Apparently he recorded the conversion event and stated it was "November 5, 1826, at half-past ten o'clock at night, while on my knees in the kitchen of my uncle James Bartley's farm-house".  (From Connexional Biography written by H.G. Button, Primitive Methodist Magazine 1876, page 297-299.)

Furthermore John Moore said, "My aunt Bartley was praying when I believed; but there were my brother, uncle Bartley, Walter, and Stephen on their knees at the same time. My brother and seven more had found the Lord at the meeting at Enmore Green the same night, where we had all been."

To my knowledge, John had one sister and one brother.  Consequently, I concluded that my great-great-grandfather William Moore found the Lord at a Methodist meeting in the hamlet of Enmore Green, Motcombe, during the evening of Sunday 5th November 1826 at about 20 years of age.

I was truly delighted and amazed to have found such personal and specific details about a relative from nearly 200 years ago.  However, once I had absorbed the article's biographical details about John Moore, and stared a picture of him in later life (see below), I immediately started wondering about the identity of Uncle James Bartley, Aunt Bartley, Walter and Stephen.  This hobby is a never-ending chain of mysteries - once new facts have been recorded then new loose ends beguile.

Image presented on "My Primitive Methodists" website page Moore, John (1807-1875)

Moore of Motcombe - part 2

Previously, we saw that William Moore, blacksmith, and his wife Hester (Ester) had a son baptised in an Anglican church in Motcombe, Dorset in April 1830.  Then four years later they had two children baptised in a Methodist Chapel in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

The record of William and Hester's marriage had not mentioned occupation or parents.  However, after her death when he remarried in 1840 that registration recorded William Moore as a blacksmith of Motcombe and his father was also William Moore, blacksmith.

A few years later there was a marriage registration for Meshach Moore, a blacksmith of Motcombe with his father named as Meshach Moore, blacksmith.  I assumed that with the same surname, sharing the same specialised occupation, in a village of about 1,500 inhabitants (1841 data quoted in Hunt's Trade Directory of 1851), these men were likely to be related to one another.

There was some support for this idea - Meshach was a witness at William's marriage.  However, looking at the parish register as whole, it is striking that the name Meshach Moore appears as a witness on nearly 25% of 700 or so marriages there over a 34 year period of time (data from "Parish of Motcombe Marriages 1837 - 1875 transcribed from parish registers by Jan Genge Kennedy 2003").  According to the 1851 local trade directory Meshach Moore was "blacksmith and parish clerk".

Searching the internet for the three keywords - Moore Motcombe Blacksmith  - I was delighted to find a page called "History of Motcombe Forge".  It says, "From 1822 three successive generations of the same family at Motcombe Forge were parish clerks and blacksmiths, all having the same name of Meshach Moore."  So the 150 or so marriage registrations from 1837 onwards were probably not all witnessed by the same Meshach Moore.

Reading on, the History of Motcombe Forge page also declares, "work was obviously plentiful as there were two other forges in the village, although one of the new blacksmiths was a dissenter (a Primitive Methodist) and he did not get any work from the Lord of the Manor or the Church!"  So could this be a description of my great-great-grandfather - a religious non-conformist who lost customers in his home village?  William Moore's link to Salisbury may have been to find work as well as to connect with fellow Methodists there.