Author: John C. Stone II

This website has focused on the descendants of Richard Stone 1579 of Clayhanger, Devon, who can be found in Chipstable, Asbrittle, Wiveliscombe and other nearby parishes in Somerset and Devon.

When working with Robert Hayward, then of Wellington, and Nan (Mrs. George) Mead in 1995 and later, we discovered that we needed to separate our many Stones into at least two big lines after Richard Stone 1579 of my line was discovered to be the father of Emanuel Stone from his first marriage. Emanuel’s descendants include Captain Stone 1784 who emigrated to Illinois in 1818. This is the line from which I descend.

Richard 1579 (my 9th GGF) married a second time, almost forty years after his first marriage. The descendants of  his marriage with Elinor/Eleanor Slocombe also remained in the parishes named above and were close companions of their cousins from Richard’s first marriage, primarily around Chipstable, Ashbrittle and Wiveliscombe. This second marriage also produced a Captain Stone 1756, a cousin of my ancestor Captain 1784. This older Captain’s son Robert emigrated to Tasmania and is responsible for thousands of descendants there and in Australia and New Zealand. (Captain Stone 1784 of the first descent line was most likely named after his older cousin Captain Stone 1756 of the second descent line). I know of no other Captain Stones in Great Britain, and I have been told by an eminent historian and university vice chancellor that he has never seen a given (baptismal) name Captain in any English family of whatever surname!

There are many more Stones in the parishes named and in other neighboring parishes that I have been unable to attach accurately and confidently to my existing tree. Since the parish records in Ashbrittle and Chipstable are absent in the 16c and sparse in the 17c, many of these unattached Stones may indeed belong in the same large family that includes Richard Stone 1579. There were many Stones in Clayhanger, Devon from the late 15c or earlier. I recall that 13 of the 30 or so Clayhanger wills that are housed at the UK Archives were Stones, by far the largest one-name contingent from that parish.

When Richard 1579 of Clayhanger was discovered to be the father of Emanuel Stone 1608, and later as the father of a second family who then lived in Ashbrittle and Chipstable, the discovery separated this entire family from one that had been developed by Bob Hayward and that can be found online in various sites that contain uploaded family trees. Some of the data in those trees is now known to be in error, as the family of Richard Stone 1579 has been developed and documented. The direct lines from Richard 1579 to the Stones of Illinois and the Stones of Australia and New Zealand I am confident are correct. I cannot be certain, however, of the descendants of all the brothers and sisters down through the generations. There are hundreds of Stones in my PAF file that I cannot firmly tie to the Richard Stone 1579 line, but many of them may belong there.

Bob Hayward traced another Stone line back to William Stone of Yarcombe, Devon in 1566, and I am including in this post a chart of the descendants of William 1566, including an index. This data is Bob’s work and I have not done any research to corroborate or change it. Stone researchers who do not belong to the Richard Stone 1579 family may belong to the William Stone 1566 family. Perhaps the two families are connected, but at this time I do not know. Bob Hayward has many of the descendants of William 1566 living in Langford Budville, Wiveliscombe, Chipstable and other parishes around Wiveliscombe, i.e. almost the same parishes in which the Richard Stone descendants lived.

I would be most pleased if someone could find a connection between these two lines, or prove that there is not one. I will be happy to answer questions – if I know the answer!

Twelve generations of the descendants of William Stone of Yarcombe are shown here. Click below.

William Stone of Yarcombe

“STONE FAMILY OF CHIPSTABLE”. That is how the Cheffins Auctioneer in Cambridge described the almost one hundred documents obtained for this site in July 2013. At last I have compiled abstracts of the documents in order of date, from the 16c to the 19c.  The documents relate primarily to the Stone family of Chipstable, Ashbrittle and Wiveliscombe, Somerset and Clayhanger and elsewhere in Devon, but there are many other surnames and a few other parishes mentioned.  The most important surnames in addition to STONE are members of the Bluet family and John Bluet’s descendants, and members of the Hill, Norman, Perratt, Rogers, and Timewell families. Among others named in the documents are Arscott, Basset, Burge, Crympe, Davys, Daw, Gear, Hancock, Hawkins, Hooper, Hosegood, Jones, Langdon, Lang, Lenthall, Lord Lymington, Malet, Manly, Peaton, Perriam, Pook, Potten, Pyne, Quicke, Richard, Rogers, Scott, Slocombe, Standerwyck, Tanfield, Trevelyan, Waldron, Warren, Wellstead, Westcott, Williams, Winter, and Yeandle. There are probably more! The surnames BOND and BOYD should be added because the documents were obtained from the archives of those families. Anna Stone married Alfred Bond in Devon in 1863, and that is how the documents moved from the Stone family to their in-laws.

To find the documents, go to the STONE DOCUMENTS page table of contents, find the link to the Cheffins documents at the bottom of the table, and click on it. Alternatively, go to the bottom of the STONE DOCUMENTS page and find the same link at the bottom of the previous text entries.  We welcome comments on these documents. Ultimately full text versions will be available.

Or simply click here:  Cheffins documents in date order for web

In August 2013 we obtained almost 100 documents from an auction at Cheffins in Cambridge. Although they confirm most of what is shown on this website as descendants of Richard Stone 1579, there will be some changes and additions. For example, a major change involves William Stone 1716, son of Robert Stone 1670 in the second line of descent with Richard and Eleanor. Remove his son William who married Jane Crooke, and their descendants. They do not belong in this line. William 1716 married Betty Norman in 1775 and they had sons William and Robert, of whom Robert survived. I do not know the precise provenance of William Stone who married Jane Crooke but will suggest some options. There will be other changes and some additions based upon these marvelous original documents, but the change noted above is the major one in correcting an error. The line from Richard Stone 1579 and Eleanor (his second marriage) is now very firm down to the emigration of Robert Stone 1789 and his sons Captain James Stone and Robert Stone to Australia and New Zealand. For the descendants in AUS and NZ I have relied upon the expert work of my NZ cousins. There may be some changes in the collateral lines of Richard’s first line of descent (first marriage with wife UNKNOWN), but the direct line to the USA emigration remains firm.  Stay tuned for further updates to this tree, but it will be a while before I have time to make all the additions.

 

The Bishop Stone Conundrum

The relationships described here are backed up by parish records. Only some of the interpretations remain in question.

Bishop Stone was baptized in Chipstable, Somerset in 1803 and was a life-long resident of the parish. The parish record for Bishop, and also for John 1800, Mary 1809 and Edmund 1812, list the parents as John and Mary Stone.

Who were John and Mary Stone? There appear to be two choices.

(1) A John Stone married a Mary Stone in Bishops Lydeard on March 10, 1799, perfect timing for the birth of first son John in November 1800 and Bishop in 1803. (Mary Stone was the daughter of John Stone and Patience Yendall of Lydeard St. Lawrence.) Stone family researchers believe that this John Stone was the son of John Stone and Elizabeth Selleck of Wiveliscombe and Chipstable. He was baptized in 1775 and would have been about 25 when John 1800 was baptized.

(2) There was another couple named John Stone and Mary in Chipstable at the time. Parish records show the dual baptisms of a son John Stone and a daughter Mary Stone on 27 Oct 1797, two years before the marriage of the #1 couple John Stone and Mary named above. This John presumably would have been slightly older than the first John described, because the two children of this John and Mary Stone were baptized three years earlier. The family relationships and marriage of this couple John and Mary Stone have not been identified.

 

The Stone family researchers with whom I have worked since the 1990s concluded that Bishop’s father was the first John Stone above, the second son of John Stone 1739 – 1799 and Elizabeth Sellick 1750 – 1804. John 1739 belonged to a long-time Chipstable family and lived in both Wiveliscombe and Chipstable. John and Elizabeth had six sons and no daughters, one of whom, in addition to John 1775, was Robert who was baptized in 1786.

Bishop Stone’s father John did indeed have a brother named Robert. A Robert Stone died in 1864 and in his will he named his nephew Bishop Stone as his primary heir and left a legacy of £200 to his brother John. The 1861 census noted that this same Robert Stone lived in the Wiveliscombe property called “Weare” that had been acquired under copyhold lease by Thomas Stone 1716 – 1789 father of John 1739, and remained in the family for three or more generations. Robert Stone was a victualler and a hotel manager. At his death he owned the Bampton Hotel in Wiveliscombe. After his death, his nephew Bishop Stone had some control of the hotel property, according to documents at the SHC. Robert’s will and the census data appear to confirm that both he and his brother John were sons of John Stone and Elizabeth Sellick.

So what is the conundrum?

1) In the 1851 and 1861 census Robert, the Innkeeper and uncle of Bishop and brother of John, gives his birth year as 1790, not 1786. His tombstone at St. Andrews, Wiveliscombe in 1864 states that he was 74 years of age (i.e. born 1790). Thus Robert is saying that his birth year was 1790, not 1786 when Parish records state that Robert Stone son of John Stone and Elizabeth Sellick was baptized. Did Robert fudge on his age? Could Robert 1786 have died and another Robert been born in 1790 – the same year his brother Joseph was baptized? There is no record of such burial or baptism.

There was, however, a Robert Stone who was baptized in Wiveliscombe in 1790. His parents were Robert Stone and Jane Chorley. Robert and Jane were married in 1788, and Robert was their first child. Unless this marriage was a second marriage for Robert, there is no room for an older brother John. To be a logical father for brothers John 1800 and Bishop 1803, John should have been born prior to 1780, well before the 1788 marriage of Robert Stone and Jane Chorley. He definitely would have been older than Robert the innkeeper. No other brothers John and Robert Stone who fit this scenario with Bishop Stone have been found. The 1775 baptism of the father John, son of John and Elizabeth and not of Robert and Jane, fits perfectly.

2) In Robert’s 1864 will, as well as naming his nephew Bishop he made a legacy to his brother John: “To my brother John Stone the sum of two hundred pounds”. In 1864 John 1775, would have been 89 years old! Although at least one of John’s direct ancestors did indeed live into his 90s, 89 is nonetheless an extreme age and considerably older than his younger brother Robert. Furthermore, John’s death was reported in 1823 when he was 48. Specifically, a John Stone was buried in Chipstable in 1823 at age 48, exactly matching a birth year of 1775! So how could John have been named in Robert’s will if he was forty years dead? Tending to confirm the burial record, no census data 1841 – 1861 finds the family of John and Mary Stone in the local area.

Summary: Parish records: A couple named John Stone and Mary were the parents of Bishop Stone and his presumed three siblings. The data and years exactly fit the choice of John Stone (son of John Stone and Elizabeth Sellick) and his wife Mary Stone, married in 1799. This John did indeed have a younger brother Robert, baptized in 1786.  But Bishop Stone’s uncle Robert claims to have been born in 1790, not 1786, and his brother John to whom he left a legacy in 1864 was assumed to have died in 1823.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this conundrum?

 

After too long, I have finally added more than a dozen “new” wills and indentures to Stone Documents (see Stone page, Stone Documents, second book: Wills & Indentures). The final four will be added eventually.

I added a 1684 date of death for Thomazine Stone widow of Richard Stone 1640 of Clayhanger, because we have her Probate Inventory. I also added an approximate death prior to 1684 for Richard, her husband. I added a child, Grace, who would have been born after Richard’s mother Eleanor wrote her will in 1674 but before Thomazine’s death in 1684, perhaps in the mid 1670s.

Check the STONE FAMILY page for the some of the ancestors of John Charles Stone and his wife Gertrude Lucile Walser. Check the RHODES FAMILY page for some of the ancestors of Charles R. Rhodes and Mary Quarters Riley.

The new Geography page contains an introduction to the Stone family history in several parishes along the Devon – Somerset border country in England’s “West Country”. Maps and illustrations will give you a sense of the land and how the important parishes in our history relate to each other. Genealogical links (GENUKI) to the various parishes are provided.