Errands

Reference

ENQUIRY SENT 13 September 2026, ANSWERED 14 September 2026. The archive office cannot be asked to read a register. The entry is still there and still reachable — the door changed, not the record. The next move is GFHS, drafted and waiting to be sent.

What it settles

THE LAST UNNAMED PERSON IN THE DIRECT ENGLISH LINE

Hannah's mother's surname. The FamilySearch shared tree calls her LYDIA JONES and dates the marriage to 1797 at Berkeley, but attaches no record to either claim — John Saniger's profile there carries fourteen sources and every one is a baptism. A Berkeley marriage entry of 1797 would name her, and would settle whether the Lyddya Sinegar aged seventy in Hannah's house in 1841 is her mother.

Context →

Reference

index reference found on FindMyPast, 14 September 2026; neither document read

What it settles

THE NEAREST THING TO A FAMILY DOCUMENT IN THE ENGLISH LINE

Joseph D'Arcy was baptised at Portsea in March 1780, son of Robert and Jean, and died at Homestead, Lymington on 7 February 1848. A newspaper of 3 April 1848 reports that he made his will in February 1844 and begins to summarise it, and the digitised text breaks off. The will names his legatees — which means his children, and possibly his brothers and sisters. It is the closest thing to a family document this line has. AND THERE IS NOW A SECOND DOCUMENT. The Index to Death Duty Registers 1796-1903 has him: JOSEPH D'ARCY of Lymington, Hampshire, grant year 1848, court “PCC and Country Courts”, archive reference IR 27/284. The register behind that index states what the estate was worth and names the legatees and executors — frequently in more detail than the will itself.

Context →

Reference

REPLIED 16 September 2026. Three things: the holdings list exists and is public; nothing of theirs is online; they will search for a fee. Her first suggestion was irishgenealogy.ie, which this archive recorded as BLOCKED behind a bot check on 15 September — and the holdings list she linked is itself behind a Cloudflare bot check, so it could not be read on 17 September either. Three doors in one errand, and only the paid one opens.

What it settles

ANSWERED, and the answer is a procedure rather than a record. The RCB Library's registers cannot be searched remotely at all — «All of our registers must be searched manually and in person, at present no online access is available.» What survives is published: the List of Church of Ireland Parish Registers marks the parishes the Library holds and links, parish by parish, to the registers and their dates. The Library will search on request for a fee, quoted on application. Betham's was not commented on, and did not need to be — this archive ruled the licence bonds out by date on 14 September. The live route to the marriage of George Pitt D'Arcy and Maria White is now a paid lookup, and it needs a parish named first.

Context →

Reference

ENQUIRY SENT 13 September 2026, ANSWERED 22 September 2026, free. Nine days were spent waiting on a line that has never existed in this record class. The reply also offered a record nobody asked for: a marriage of 1852 for «what looks like Thomas's son, James», giving Thomas's occupation as Labourer — and that one is after 1837, so that one names a father.

What it settles

THE QUESTION WAS ADDRESSED TO THE WRONG CENTURY

Nothing, as it turns out, and that is the finding. English marriage registers did not name fathers until civil registration in 1837, so no 1828 entry anywhere could have proved this. What the entry did give: by banns, witnesses James Hall and Thomas Davey — «probably church officials» — and the surname spelt SANIGAR, not SANIGRE.

Context →

Reference

marriage confirmed 13 September 2026; read by an archivist 22 September 2026; the father's name is not on it and never was

What it settles

It named no father and could not have. It settled the spelling instead, against this archive: the register reads SANIGAR where the index this archive published reads SANIGRE.

Context →

Reference

licence bonds ruled out by date 14 September; the fire premise disproved 17 September

What it settles

The marriage of George Pitt D'Arcy and Maria White, about 1819. Every Wicklow marriage index reachable online is Roman Catholic, and he was an Anglican officer — this archive assumed the Church of Ireland registers for the county went in the 1922 Four Courts fire — AND ON 17 SEPTEMBER THAT ASSUMPTION WAS DISPROVED: at least 25 Wicklow parishes hold marriage registers covering 1819, in RCB Library custody. The RCB Library keeps what survived and knows which parishes kept their own books. Betham's abstracts of marriage licence bonds survive even though the bonds burned. THE LICENCE-BOND HALF IS NOW ANSWERED AND IT IS NEGATIVE. FindMyPast's Ireland Diocesan and Prerogative Marriage Licence Bonds Indexes 1623-1866 holds no George D'Arcy at all, and its Dublin diocese entries effectively stop in 1741 — the latest in the whole set are one 1813, one 1752, and then a wall of 1741. Betham's Prerogative Marriage Licences Abstracts ends at 1810. Neither can hold an 1819 marriage. What remains is the RCB Library's question about surviving parish custody.

Context →

Reference

searched and empty, coverage established

What it settles

CLOSED 14 SEPTEMBER 2026

Read under wildcards SAN, SIN, SYN* and SWA*, which return every form this surname takes. The whole index holds two Saniger-variant entries: ABRAHAM SYNEGAR, cardmaker of Dursley, administration 1813/8; and JOHN SANIGAR, carpenter of Oldbury-on-Severn in Thornbury, will 1822/194. Neither is Berkeley. John Saniger of Berkeley left no proved will and no administration in the diocesan court, so this route to naming his children is closed rather than merely unopened. Control: SMITH returns 277.

Context →

Reference

searched and not found 13 September 2026; found in Bristol the same day; premise retired 22 September 2026. [Own error 44](/corrections/).

What it settles

Nothing it claimed it would. This errand said «a Gloucestershire marriage entry names the father, as his son's did in 1871». The son's did because it is of 1871. Registers began naming fathers at civil registration in 1837; a marriage of 1828 or 1829 names nobody's. The identification of Thomas Sinegar of Oxford Road with the Thomas Saniger baptised at Berkeley in 1808 stands where it stood — on an exact age, an unusual birthplace and a mile of distance, and on no document.

Context →

Reference

found 13 September 2026, FreeCEN

What it settles

THE BEST LEAD THIS ARCHIVE HAS EVER HAD ON HANNAH

Where Hannah Saniger was born. A Saniger family living two streets from the Wakefields in 1851 gives its birthplace as Chew Magna, and Chew Magna is in SOMERSET — which is the one thing the 1841 census insists on about Hannah and about the Lyddya Sinegar in her house. FreeREG's Chew Magna transcript is a fragment of two Smith entries in twenty-one years, so this cannot be searched from a desk. A baptism for Hannah Saniger, daughter of John and Lydia, would close the oldest open question on this site in one line.

Context →

Reference

found 13 September 2026, FreeBMD

What it settles

The exact day, the cause, and the informant — who is usually the widow or a son, named with their address. It would confirm 20 September as the day of death and put a name to whoever registered it.

Context →

Reference

jurisdiction identified 13 September 2026, Collinson and TNA Discovery

What it settles

Chew Magna was a PECULIAR, outside the bishop's ordinary jurisdiction, proving its own wills down to 1787 — so Chew Magna probate is not where a researcher would first look for it. Before anyone is sent to Taunton, the archive should establish what survives of Somerset probate at all, and under which court a Chew Magna will of the 1820s would be found.

Context →

Reference

found 13 September 2026, FreeBMD

What it settles

THE CHEAPEST DECISIVE DOCUMENT ON THIS SITE

It names her mother WITH HER MAIDEN SURNAME. Five Queensland death registrations now say Saniger in four spellings, so the name itself is settled — but not one English record has ever confirmed it, and the 1841 census says Hannah was born OUTSIDE Gloucestershire, which is why no Gloucestershire register will ever find her. This certificate is the only document identified that attacks the question from the English end.

Context →

Reference

blocked by Cloudflare, 13 September 2026

What it settles

THE BIGGEST FREE THING LEFT

The entire D'Arcy side were New South Welshmen. George Pitt D'Arcy died at Parramatta in 1849, George Lindsay was born there in 1829, Frederick Robert and Charlotte both crossed. NSW death registrations name the parents of the deceased — which is how Queensland's index settled the Saniger name five times over. This is the largest free index this archive has never searched, and it is shut to an automated browser.

Context →

Reference

blocked by Cloudflare, 13 September 2026

What it settles

THREE LINES, ONE FREE DATABASE

This archive has three Irish lines and has never searched an Irish record. The most testable claim is the marriage of Paul Cole Atkinson and Jane Creech at Carrigaline, County Cork, on 27 September 1853, which the site states as fact and has never seen. Then Richard Atkinson of Limerick, and Catherine Margaret Mulcahy of Cork, whose parents are unknown.

Context →

Reference

found 13 September 2026 via TNA Discovery

What it settles

A WHOLE BRANCH, FOR THREE POUNDS

He married Margarett Maria Isabella D'Arcy, Robert and Jean's daughter, at Chatham in 1806 by licence, witnessed by her brother Joseph. His will of 1844 would name his widow and children — an entire Welsh branch of this family that the archive has never contained a word about. Also not on FindMyPast, for the same reason as errand 20: its Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills index stops at 1800.

Context →

Reference

identified 13 September 2026

What it settles

The Saniger family in its own parish, by name and holding, from 1601 to 1749 — John Saniger yeoman, Edward Saniger of Saniger gent and clothier, Maurice Saniger and Jane his wife. This is the documentary spine of the family the archive has only ever seen through a parish register that stops in 1677.

Context →

Reference

identified 13 September 2026

What it settles

Saniger lies in the tithing of Hinton. Manor court rolls list tenants by name at each court — the one record type that catches a family holding land in a parish whose register is lost to us after 1677.

Context →

Reference

catalogued in full, 13 September 2026

What it settles

Where Hannah Saniger was born, if she was born to a chapel-going family. The catalogue has now been read properly: there are THIRTY-SIX Bristol registers in RG 4, not five, and exactly twelve of them are births or baptisms whose dates cover her window. Broad Mead Baptist births 1787–1817 (RG 4/2697) and Lewins Mead Presbyterian baptisms 1718–1840 (RG 4/1830) each cover it on their own. Access corrected 13 September 2026: all twelve are marked digitised:false at Kew, so this needs a subscription or a visit, not an afternoon.

Context →

Reference

identified 13 September 2026

What it settles

The baptism of William Sneyd the weaver, about 1746. FreeREG holds no Bishop's Transcripts for Madeley at all, and his baptism is not in any transcribed Staffordshire register. The diocesan second copy is the obvious next place and nobody has asked for it.

Context →

Reference

FindMyPast coverage checked and excluded, 14 September 2026

What it settles

THE PRIORITY

His parentage is the largest open question on this site and no record of his life names a father. A will names family. Found 9 September 2026 and still unordered. CHECKED ON FINDMYPAST WHILE THE TRIAL WAS OPEN AND IT IS NOT THERE. FindMyPast's only Prerogative Court of Canterbury collections are a wills index for 1750-1800 and an administrations index for 1660-1700. Nothing in its catalogue carries PCC wills proved after 1800, so this will, Joseph's of 1848 and John Maddock Jones's of 1844 are all beyond it. £3.50 at Kew is the price and there is no free substitute.

Context →

Reference

notes/letters/2026-09-re-museum-chatham.md

What it settles

The best chance of closing the question the archive was built around

Robert D'Arcy's parentage, from the records of the Corps he served for fifty-one years and the town he died in.

Context →

Reference

requests/qld-bdm-certificates.md

What it settles

Turns three dotted pedigree edges solid

Three causes of death, and three sets of parents named in a civil record rather than a tree. Registration numbers already identified.

Context →

Reference

notes/letters/2026-09-medway-archives.md

What it settles

The likeliest of all of these to succeed

Robert D'Arcy, 1827, and Constantine D'Arcy, 1805. A burial register can give an age, an abode and sometimes a relationship.

Context →

Reference

DONE 14 September 2026.

What it settles

CONFIRMED, NOT CORRECTED

Confirmed outright, from the authority rather than by inference from the B.2090A's “Not yet to hand”: Private ARTHUR HARTLEY SNEYD, service number 5050, 9th Bn. Australian Infantry, A.I.F., died 20 August 1916 aged 22, commemorated on the VILLERS-BRETONNEUX MEMORIAL, Somme — the memorial to the missing, which carries 10,696 names. CWGC adds: “Son of Arthur and Martha Sneyd, of James St., Wooloowin, Brisbane. Born at Rockhampton, Queensland.” Every one of those details was already held here. The record corrected nothing and confirmed everything, which is the rarer and duller of the two outcomes.

Context →

Reference

requests/scotlandspeople-murdoch.md

What it settles

The branch the archive has most neglected

The Ayrshire Murdochs are a quarter of the tested descendant and the archive has 25 of 52 ancestor slots filled. The DNA points straight at this gap.

Context →

Reference

requests/rootsireland-atkinson-limerick.md

What it settles

Anything at all. The Atkinsons are five generations deep and stop dead at the emigrant.

Context →

Reference

requests/qsa-order-list.md

What it settles

All nine identified to series and file number

Arthur Hartley Sneyd's 1916 intestacy; William Hartley Sneyd's 1873 insolvency — a wholly new fact; four wills, one of which may be the gaol governor's; two police staff files that are probably his sons.

Context →

Reference

ANSWERED 15 September 2026 from TNA's own guides and catalogue. Note the warning in the Board of Ordnance guide: “you cannot search this series by a person's name in our online catalogue”. WO 25/3913, Royal Engineers officers' services, IS digitised and name-indexed — but begins in 1796, so it holds him only if he was still serving.

What it settles

THE SERIES IS NAMED AT LAST

Robert D'Arcy was appointed by the BOARD OF ORDNANCE, not commissioned by the War Office and not by purchase, which is why the ordinary officer series have never held him. It would also settle 1776 against 1778: Connolly's Roll gives one date and the Army Lists another, and this archive currently prints both on different pages.

Context →

Reference

found 13 September 2026, TNA Discovery

What it settles

A WIDOW'S WILL NAMES HER CHILDREN — AND IT IS FREE

A widow's will names her children. This one was proved on 24 December 1833, in a parish between Berkeley and Bristol that holds eight Saniger register entries, at exactly the moment Hannah Saniger was a married woman with children in Bristol. Probate is the record type this archive has never once searched for this surname, and this is the first thing it turned up.

Context →

Reference

coverage established 13 September 2026

What it settles

THE ARCHIVE'S OLDEST ENGLISH FIND IS STANDING ON TWO YEARS

Whether Robert and Jean D'Arcy had other children at Portsea. FreeREG's transcript of this parish is TWENTY-TWO MONTHS long — baptisms for 1780 and 1781 and almost nothing else — so Joseph's entry survives by luck and the silence around it means nothing at all. A thirty-year run of the original volume would test the whole household, and might name Robert's own marriage.

Context →

Reference

DONE 14 September 2026. No descent is claimed: nothing links these eleven to Hannah Saniger. What it gives is the surname's home ground and its trades.

What it settles

THE SURNAME, DOCUMENTED TWO CENTURIES BEFORE THE REGISTERS

Eleven men of the surname in four spellings — Saniger (5), Sanyger (3), Syniger (2), Sainger (1). One of them, JOHN SAINGER, weaver, is mustered inside the hamlet itself, which the survey writes as “Saniger [in Hinton parish, Berkeley]”. Two of the four spellings were not among the seventeen this archive held. Every 1608 form ends -GER, which dates the -GAR forms of the later registers as late rather than old.

Context →

Reference

identified 13 September 2026

What it settles

The catalogue descriptions alone give six generations of names, trades and land. The deeds themselves give witnesses, relationships and often the words “son and heir”. D3831/Box5/1 is a century of Panthurst Farm, 1716–1814 — the farm John Saniger sold into in 1601.

Context →

Reference

index found 14 September 2026; original unseen

What it settles

THE ONLY RECORD OF ROBERT D'ARCY BETWEEN 1778 AND 1802

The index gives two christenings to Robert D'Arcy and Jane — Constantine on 18 February 1786 and Jane on 17 March 1788 — and nothing else. The register page itself would give the father's rank and corps, the abode, and any further children of the same parents. It is the only direct evidence this archive has that Robert D'Arcy was ever in the West Indies, and it would turn a strong inference into a documented posting.

Context →

Reference

opened as a question 14 September 2026

What it settles

When Robert D'Arcy went to Barbados, how long he stayed and in what capacity. His career was long blank between his commission of 17 January 1776 and his majority of 1802, and two christenings are the only things known to fall inside them.

Context →

Reference

SERIES IDENTIFIED 15 September 2026. Two honest limits: the word in the title is MISCELLANEOUS — these are returns that happened to reach the GRO, not a complete register of British deaths in France — so a negative in RG 43/4 would prove only that the death is not in RG 35, not that it went unregistered. And there is no TNA series of French consular death registers for the 1840s at all; FO 27 holds Havre consular correspondence, but it is correspondence, not a register, and is not name-indexed. · 9 OCTOBER 2026: THERE IS A FREE ROUTE AND IT IS NOT KEW. The Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime publish the état civil, digitised, without an account. Ingouville deaths for the whole of 1843 are cote 4 E 9077, 310 views, with tables décennales 4 E 10127 and 4 E 9933 over them; Le Havre's own 1843 deaths and those of the communes it absorbed return twelve results beside it. A French death act carries the age, the birthplace, the parents and the surviving spouse — more than a consular return would. WHAT REMAINS IS READING THEM, which is a sitting, not a fee and not a sign-in. · 9 OCTOBER 2026, ANSWERED AND NOT AT KEW. Both acts were read in the Archives départementales de la Seine-Maritime, 4 E 9077, the 1843 death register of Ingouville, free and without an account. MARGARET, ACT N° 43, DIED 1 FEBRUARY 1843, AGED SIXTY-ONE — born about 1781, the first dating of a child of Robert D'Arcy taken from a record. JOHN MADDACK JONES, ACT N° 113, DIED 21 MARCH 1843, AGED SIXTY-EIGHT, described as her widower. Neither act names a parent or a birthplace: the declarants were four neighbours, and every one of them is recorded as not being a relative. So the errand's own reason — a parentage for Margaret — is NOT answered, and RG 35 would still be worth a look by anyone who can reach it. What is answered is the age, which is what was wanted most.

What it settles

AN AGE FOR ONE OF ROBERT'S CHILDREN

Margaret Jones née D'Arcy died at Havre in February 1843 and her husband Major John Maddock Jones at Ingouville in March. A consular death registration gives an age and frequently a parentage. It is the nearest thing to a birth date for a daughter of Robert D'Arcy.

Context →

Reference

LOCATED 14 September 2026. Invisible under SANIGER, present under SANIGAR — the fourth time a spelling has hidden a record in this family. Coverage checked first: Thornbury/Berkeley deaths are complete 1837-1948.

What it settles

THE CERTIFICATE IS NOW ORDERABLE

This archive's own tree gives Hannah Saniger's mother as LYDIA JONES, born 13 March 1770 at Wotton-under-Edge and died 7 July 1851 at Berkeley. A death in July 1851 is inside civil registration: the September quarter of the Thornbury district index should hold her, and the certificate gives an age, an occupation of husband and an informant — very often a child. It is the cheapest unexploited document in this archive.

Context →

Reference

TESTED 14 September 2026. Control: 164 Jones baptisms in Gloucestershire 1760-1785 on the same search, so the failure is the parish's transcription, not the query. This is an EMPTY, not a null.

What it settles

Whether JONES is her surname at all, which this site has called an unevidenced assertion for a week while holding a parish and a date for it.

Context →

Reference

opened 14 September 2026

What it settles

Her marriage to Thomas Saniger and her burial nine years later, both at Berkeley, both given by this archive's tree with full dates and neither ever requested. She is listed among the open questions as “where did Catherine Cotton come from?” while the answer — Berkeley, born 11 October 1746, daughter of Edward Cotton and Elizabeth — sits in the data files.

Context →

Reference

found in this archive's own data 14 September 2026; never tested

What it settles

THE FIRST LEAD ON ROBERT'S PARENTAGE THAT IS NOT THE HOLDERNESS STORY

This archive's tree gives Robert D'Arcy a BROTHER — Constantine D'Arcy, born Barbados 1759, died Chatham 1778, appointed to De Lancey's Brigade on 1 June 1778, with the note that the original transcription read “Cornelius Dersey”. If that officer is real he is the first sibling ever attached to Robert, and his papers would name their parents. If he is not, the tree has duplicated Robert's own son and back-dated him twenty-seven years, and that needs saying.

Context →

Reference

three registrations, an obituary, a probate index entry and a census household

What it settles

LARGELY CLOSED 14 SEPTEMBER 2026

ALL THREE DEATH REGISTRATIONS FOUND, 14 September 2026. Charlotte, aged 73, Brighton Q2 1869, vol 2B p.152; Jane, aged 87, Brighton Q1 1875, vol 2B p.203; Catherine, aged 86, Brighton Q1 1876, vol 2B p.164. Catherine also has a newspaper notice giving her address as Bedford Square and the title MISS, and all three appear in one household in the 1841 Brighton census. What remains is the probate, the certificates themselves, and the gap in 1851–1871.

Context →

Reference

NARROWED 15 September 2026. A belief worth correcting: IR 26 is often said to stop in 1857. It does not — 1857 is where the MICROFILMING stops, not the records. The registers for 1858–1903 survive as originals at Kew, unfilmed and not online, and may need advance notice to produce.

What it settles

THE MOST LIKELY DOCUMENT TO NAME THE ENGLISH FAMILY AFTER 1850

Catherine D'Arcy died at Bedford Square, Brighton in January 1876 leaving an estate that attracted duty. The Death Duty register states its value and names the executors and the legatees. Three unmarried sisters who outlived their brothers leave their money to nephews and nieces — which is to say, this is the document most likely to name the next generation of this family in England, including anyone descended from Joseph at Lymington.

Context →

Reference

references found 14 September 2026

What it settles

A death certificate gives the exact date, the address, the cause, and the INFORMANT — who for an unmarried woman of 87 is usually the relative who was present. Three certificates would give three informants, and the informants are the point.

Context →

Reference

the surname was indexed as ARCY — the D' had been read as part of the forename

What it settles

1851 CLOSED 14 SEPTEMBER 2026; 1861 SEARCHED FOUR WAYS AND EMPTY

1851 IS DONE: all three are at WESTERN COTTAGE, BRIGHTON, HO107/1646 f.357 p.59 sch.172, indexed under the surname ARCY with the D' lost — which is why every DARCY search missed them. 1861 has since been searched four ways — by surname (ARCY and DARCY, Sussex), by address (Bedford Square and the Western streets), by birthplace within Sussex (33 people born Barbadoes, read one by one) and by birthplace nationally (25 Janes and 16 Catherines) — and they are in none of it. What is left is a street-by-street read of the 1861 and 1871 enumerators' books for the western end of Brighton, and the Brighton Standard's house-by-house occupancy lists.

Context →

Reference

coverage established 15 September 2026

What it settles

The Italian side of the marriage that joins this archive to the Falco one. 63 MATRIMONI PROCESSETTI are the prize: the processetti carry birth extracts and parental consents for both parties, which is two generations per marriage. Control-tested — a search for RUSSO at Arienzo returns nothing, so the index is missing, not the family. THIS IS THE FALCO ARCHIVE'S WORK rather than this one's, and is listed here because this archive established the coverage.

Context →

Reference

coverage established 15 September 2026 — the NLI is the wrong denomination. **16 September: the RCB Library replied to the Wicklow letter and offered to search on request for a fee.** The same librarian, Helen Crawford Walsh, is the person to ask about St Mary's, Limerick, and asking costs nothing but a second email.

What it settles

THE OLDEST IRISH LINE, AND THE LEAST SEARCHED

Five generations that stop dead at the emigrant. The NLI cannot help — it holds CATHOLIC registers and this line is Anglican, on the evidence of ST MARY'S, LIMERICK and the surnames. irishgenealogy.ie is behind a bot check. What is left is the RCB Library, which has already been written to once about Wicklow and could be asked about Limerick in the same letter.

Context →

Reference

blocked 15 September 2026

What it settles

A second opinion on the Queensland burials, and GPS coordinates Find a Grave does not carry for every plot. Nothing has been searched: the site's own API answered 403 and 400 and the page never finished loading. This is a retry, not a result.

Context →

Reference

blocked 15 September 2026 — searching the forum requires an account, and none was created

What it settles

THE TWO CLAIMS THIS ARCHIVE CANNOT SETTLE ALONE

Contested descents from named families are exactly what forum specialists carry primary knowledge of, and somebody there has usually already read the wills. Two questions are ready to ask, and both should be put as the archive states them, with the evidence, inviting refutation: (1) the Holderness descent — the tree points at the 4th Earl in a note and hangs Robert off a “Thomas (Francis) D'Arcy” in its structure, and neither carries a document; (2) the Keele graft — the descent from Ralph Sneyd of Keele Hall, already DISPROVED here from the Madeley register, where the 1742 baptism names the father as William and Ralph was eighteen. Ask what would break each, not what would confirm it.

Context →

Reference

candidate found 15 September 2026

What it settles

THE LAST OF GEORGE PITT D'ARCY'S CHILDREN UNACCOUNTED FOR

Whether the Charlotte D'Arcy christened at Chatham on 31 March 1826 — eight days before the convict ship England sailed with her father's detachment — is the Charlotte who married at Parramatta thirty-three years later. A New South Wales marriage certificate names both fathers. The circumstantial case is strong: the right age, and the town where George Pitt D'Arcy died in 1849. The middle name is the problem — CATHCART in one index entry, CATHERINE in another, and absent from the baptism.

Context →

Reference

Drafted and not sent — sending mail is David's call. The letter should carry the eighteen spellings found so far, because twice now a spelling has been the thing hiding a record, and a third time in 1608.

What it settles

THE ROUTE THE COUNTY ARCHIVE ITSELF POINTED TO

The marriage of JOHN SANIGER and LYDIA at Berkeley, about 1797, and with it the surname of the last unnamed person in the direct English line. The same enquiry can carry the second question: whether Berkeley's register supports Hannah Sanigor's baptism of 18 August 1804 against the family record's 23 July 1805.

Context →

Reference

Found in TNA Discovery, 14 September 2026. Not digitised. Christian is a woman's forename in this period.

What it settles

THE RICHEST UNREAD DOCUMENT FOUND THIS WEEK

Church-court defamation suits are brought by named people about named people, and the depositions give ages, abodes and occupations for every witness. A Saniger suing in 1768 sits exactly in the generation above John Saniger of Berkeley, who married Lydia about 1797 and is the last unnamed link in the direct English line.

Context →

Reference

Named but not itemised in TNA Discovery, 14 September 2026.

What it settles

A purparty is a share of an inherited estate divided between coheirs — which is precisely what happened when John Swonhungre died without issue in 1401 and his sisters Isabel and Elizabeth took the lands. These three groupings are the paper of that division and of what came after. ANSWERED: 178 records under the medieval spellings, of which 25 were read closely and six carry kinship statements new to this archive.

Context →

Reference

Achievable without leaving the desk; the text is already downloaded.

What it settles

Smyth indexes Swanhunger at pages 130, 232, 253, 280, 286-289, 303, 315, 351, 363-366, 370-371, 374-375, 379-383. Only four have been read. The rest are descriptions of Wanswell, Hame and Nibley in which the family appears as neighbours, tenants and parties.

Context →

Reference

TESTED 15 September 2026. The OCR of these volumes is poor — it prints Eohert for Robert and MTlliam for William — so the null was taken on fragment searches tolerant of that, not on exact spellings.

What it settles

THE CITATION IS REAL; THE REPOSITORY WAS WRONG

The reason is structural, and it changes what to order. A royal inquisition post mortem was taken only for a TENANT-IN-CHIEF of the Crown. The Swonhungers held of the LORD BERKELEY by knight service and suit of court, and the Berkeleys held in chief — the calendars say so in their own entries, “held of the heir of William de Berkeleye in chief”. A mesne tenant's death produced no royal inquisition. So Smyth's “Inqu: 22. R. 2. p'. morte Johis Swonhunger” is very unlikely to be a Chancery IPM at all: it will be an inquisition taken in the Berkeley hundred court, or a document in the castle muniments Smyth had on his desk as steward. Look for it at Berkeley, not at Kew.

Context →

Reference

Found 14 September 2026 in TNA Discovery. Speculative as to relationship, cheap to test, and free to read.

What it settles

THE FIRST COTTON DOCUMENT THIS ARCHIVE HAS FOUND

CATHERINE COTTON married Thomas Saniger at Berkeley on 10 April 1769 and was buried there on 27 September 1778. Eleven months after her burial a Benjamin Cotton, cordwainer, of the same small parish, has his will proved. Her father is given by the tree as EDWARD Cotton, so Benjamin is not him — but a Berkeley Cotton making a will in 1779 is well placed to name her, her widower or her children, and this archive has never had a document from her side of the family at all.

Context →

Reference

Found 15 September 2026. Their eldest, Elizabeth Ann, was born in 1839, three years before the wedding.

What it settles

THE ONLY SNEYD MARRIAGE THIS FAMILY LEFT IN ENGLAND AFTER 1837

BOTH FATHERS' NAMES AND OCCUPATIONS. This archive has James Sneyd the engraver across four censuses at Well Street, Hanley, and his wife appears in every one of them as “Ann” and nothing else. The index gives her BIDDULPH; the certificate would give her father, and carry this line back a generation on a side it has never had.

Context →

Reference

D5555/2/9

What it settles

The 1608 muster names eleven men and then the trail goes quiet for a century and a half. A hearth tax names householders; a poll tax names adults. Either would put a name in a parish in a year.

Whether a Saniger or Swonhunger household appears in the Vale between the muster of 1608 — which this archive has read, and which gave eleven men — and the parish registers. It is the single most efficient reference found on 15 September: three sources, one shelfmark.

Context →

Reference

E 179/329

What it settles

Gloucestershire Archives holds a photostat of the enrolment as D383/1 with a part transcript, so the Gloucester copy may be the cheaper route to the same names.

Exemption certificates name the poor, which is precisely the half of a parish that leaves no other record. The catalogue says the bundle «includes names of individuals».

Context →

Reference

D3270/362

What it settles

Awre is not in FreeREG, has no surviving Protestation return, and is not covered by the 1381 poll tax membranes that survive. The court rolls are the one dense, continuous, surviving source for the parish — and they have never been asked.

WITHDRAWN 15 September 2026. This errand asked whether «the Sanigers of Awre and Blakeney» could be followed through the gap. There are no Sanigers of Awre and Blakeney. No record in this archive places the surname in the Forest of Dean; the 1608 muster puts all eleven men in Berkeley, Wotton, Dursley, Stroud and Stonehouse. Bigland's second volume mentions Awre 172 times and names no Saniger. The rolls are real and richly documented — 1387 to 1881 — and they are not about this family. Kept rather than deleted, as correction 32.

Context →

Reference

MS 3549/89

What it settles

It is the closest surviving document to the moment this family becomes visible, and it is in the wrong county to be found by anybody searching Gloucestershire. It exists at Birmingham because John Smyth of Nibley collected it while writing the very book this archive quotes.

Who held land in Hinton fourteen years before JOHN SANIGER OF SANIGER appears in the Berkeley estate deeds of 1601, and twenty-one years before the muster of 1608 names eleven men of the surname. A court baron records surrenders, admissions and the deaths since the last court — which is a list of tenants with their heirs.

Context →

Reference

LL/1806/24

What it settles

Nothing yet connects him to this family beyond a surname, a spelling and a stretch of river. That is a hypothesis, and a will is the cheapest way to kill or confirm it.

Whether there is a Saniger branch across the Severn. He is a mariner at Chepstow, twenty miles by water from the Saniger fisheries on the Berkeley shore, spelling his name the way EDWARD SANNIGER OF BERKELEY, GENT spelled it in 1694. A will names family; the catalogue names nobody.

Context →

Reference

ADM 48/84/222

What it settles

Found in the Discovery sweep of 15 September. Like the Chepstow mariner, he is a surname and a hypothesis until somebody reads the document.

Seamen's wills are short and almost always name next of kin — a wife, a mother, a brother — because that is what they exist to do. The catalogue gives his rank, his ship and nothing else.

Context →

Reference

D2957/41 — to be identified

What it settles

It is the single document that would close the gap this archive has called unbridgeable all week. Cooke had the Berkeley muniments in front of him; the conveyance he is describing should be in the estate papers the Earl received it into.

Whether this family held its own hamlet continuously from the thirteenth century to 1774. J. H. Cooke asserted it in print in 1882 and this archive has graded the assertion INFERRED, because a conclusion in a journal is evidence of a scholar's reasoning, not of the fact. The deed itself would move it to documented — or break it.

Context →

Reference

E 179/114/287/1

What it settles

Every piece is described as «Assessment (individuals)» — named taxpayers. It is the densest surviving named source for the hundred between the medieval deeds and the parish registers.

Whether anyone of this surname was taxed in Berkeley hundred in the 1540s — sixty years before the muster of 1608 found three men of the name in that hundred alone, at Halmore, Hinton and Saniger, and fifty before John Saniger appears in the estate deeds of 1601.

Context →

Reference

Gloucestershire Archives, Q and P series

What it settles

Nothing else reaches these people. They leave no wills, no monuments and no deeds; the parish register gives a name and a date and no parentage.

A settlement examination is a sworn statement of where a person was born, who their parents were, where they were apprenticed and whom they married — the one record that names a labourer's parents. The 1608 muster puts eleven men of this surname at the bottom of the Vale's scale: labourers and weavers of «lower stature». That is precisely the class the settlement papers exist to describe.

Context →

Reference

BCM — Ham manor court roll, 42 Eliz.

What it settles

It is the closest surviving document to the moment this family becomes visible on the Berkeley side, and a named antiquary has already read it and said what is in it.

Cooke read it in the 1880s and quotes the homage presenting the death of Nicholas Thorpe, «who died seised of the manor of Wanswell… and by keeping one tower in the Castle of Berkeley called Thorpe's Tower». A court baron lists the whole homage — the tenants of the manor — one year before John Saniger first appears in the Berkeley estate deeds in 1601.

Context →

Reference

WO 46/10

What it settles

WO 46 was named months ago as «now the best hope» for Robert's parentage and nobody had a specific piece to ask for. Now there is one, and it is known to contain a D'Arcy.

Possibly the oldest question in this archive. The sampled portion already names «Constantine D'Arcy, appointed 25 March 1775, profession of parent: Lieutenant in the 95th Regiment» — the first Ordnance record found that gives a D'Arcy's father at all. Robert D'Arcy took his own Ordnance commission on 17 January 1776, ten months later. If the full list names a Robert D'Arcy with a parent beside him, the join that decides the whole pedigree is answered in one line.

Context →