The Nosey Genealogist

As an avid family historian, at the end of my summer holiday I decided to set aside three days to go down to Devon, the home of so many of my ancestors. I wanted to achieve several objectives for the ongoing building of my family tree.

1. To go to Exeter and visit the County Record Office and the Devon Family History Society in the hope that I could smash through another brick wall in family history .

2. Visit the places and find the houses that my grandparents lived in as children and then as adults.

3. Find where they and my great grandparents were buried or their ashes scattered.

I am happy to report that, all things considered, I had a great deal of success.

In Exeter I was able to gain a lead on John and Sarah Thorn, who were my 4 times great-grandparents in my paternal line. The problem that I had was that I knew that great-great-grandfather Henry was the son of a John Branton Thorn and an Elizabeth Sissel and that John Branton Thorn was baptised in Dartmouth at St Saviour’s Church on the 28 September 1794. However much I looked I could not find the marriage of his parents in Dartmouth.

At the Devon County Record office in Exeter I started to look in the Parish registers for the surrounding area, but no luck. I then went into the city and found the Devon Family History Society offices. Here for a small donation of under a pound I was given a read out of Marriages 1754 to 1812 for all John Thorns marrying a Sarah in Devon. The first on the list was to a bride named Sarah Branton at Plymouth’s Charles church on the 12 January 1794!

I think I now have my long searched for great-great-great-great-grandparents.