Eleanor Slocombe – Richard Stone’s 2nd wife

Text and data on this website have shown Elinor Slocombe’s baptism as 9 November, 1620. Galen Wilson provided me with a copy of the original Parish Record for that event and date. It clearly reveals that an Elinor Slocombe was BURIED, not baptized, on that date.  Since the wording is very clear, I cannot explain why transcribers (eg. Somerset Bishops’ and other transcriptions, and FreeReg for Milverton), show the event as a baptism. Gradually I may correct this error as I work on the website’s other pages, but keep it in mind when you find reference to Elinor on this website. It is unlikely that we will ever know exactly when or where she was born, but the marriage of an Elinor Slocombe to Richard Stone on 2 Oct 1639 remains adequately documented.   JCS II. 4/28/2020

5/2/2020: I still don’t have (and don’t expect to find) a baptism for Elinor/Eleanor Slocombe. But since this original post (immediately above), Galen has discovered in the UK Archives the abstract of a 1671 court case involving plaintiffs William Slocombe the elder, William Slocombe the younger, Eleanor Stone  and Richard Stone. We suggest that those four plaintiffs are (1) Eleanor’s father William and (2) her brother William, (3) Eleanor Slocombe Stone herself (daughter and sister of William Senior and William Junior), and Eleanor’s son Richard Stone. Eleanor’s husband Richard Stone 1575 – 1653 had died by the time of this legal case, and her son Richard 1640 – 1678 seems a logical person to have been involved in the dispute. A less likely possibility for the identity of Richard Stone would be Eleanor’s step grandson Richard Stone 1640 – 1733, roughly the same age as Richard 1640-1678. Indeed, after the death of Eleanor’s son Richard in 1678  and then his wife Thomazine in 1684, the elder Richard 1640 – still very much alive – was a party to several indentures relating to his cousins of Venn Farm – i.e the children of Richard and Thomazine and their heirs. There also two documents within the Cheffins auction collection of Stone family papers which appear to be mortgage or loan agreements between Eleanor Stone and a William Slocombe. We now know quite a bit more about the family of the second wife of Richard Stone 1575, but not where or when Eleanor was born and baptized. Somerset Parishes with Slocombes include Crowcombe, Milverton, Wiveliscombe, Huish Champflower, and others. Our Slocombe family appears likely to have been of Crowcombe.