If any regular visitors of www.kisbee.co.uk pass this way, be warned I am busy trying to move house/city. Therefore the website will not be updated over the next few weeks, possibly months. My computer with my website settings and files is currently unplugged and inaccessible.
If you wish to contact me I suggest you use my kisby[at]mail.com email address.
A rolling stone gathers no moss, as the saying goes. But Samuel KISBY of Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, managed to gather two ...Mosses. It is a mystery which doesn't quite add up yet!
Samuel Kisby, a Corn Merchant's Clerk (who died at Sutton Bridge in 1890 aged 74) seems to have married two different women with the forenames Mary Moss.
Samuel's first marriage, to the aliteratively named Rebecca Beck, lasts for many years until she dies in Sutton bridge in 1875. In 1877 a Samuel KISBEY marries a Mary Moss WOODRUFF, some distance away in Risely, Bedfordshire (it was common for the husband to go to the wife's parish to get married). Her age is given as "30". Unfortunately for all concerned, Mary Moss KISBY dies aged 32 and is buried at Sutton Bridge in January 1879.
Meanwhile, later in 1879 a Samuel KISBEY marries a Mary Moss SWANNELL, quite some distance away in Barnet, Hertfordshire. In the 1881 Census Mary Moss KISBEY aged 40, "Wife of a Merchant's Clerk" is recorded at the home of her mother, Catherine SWANNELL, in Northamptonshire. So clearly this Mary Moss KISBEY is not dead in the slightest and is an entirely different person to Samuel's second wife. Curiously, Mary Moss's place of birth is Pavenham, Bedfordshire, only 7 miles from Risely (location of Samuel's second marriage). Meanwhile Samuel is recorded separately (but 'Married') in Sutton.
The birth of Mary Moss SWANNELL is recorded in 1838, which tallies approximately with her age in 1881 (women allowed to be bashful about their age!). A Mary Moss KISBY dies aged 57 in the Birmingham area in 1897. There is no apparent record of a birth of Mary Moss WOODRUFF. To confuse matters, Samuel's mother is believed to be named Sarah WOODRUFF.
If Samuel was trailing across the country following a merchant on his business, it would explain his varying locations. But is there another connection between his two wives or did Sam spend 1879 trailing across England trying to find a third wife with the exact same name as his young deceased sweetheart?!! Why did they marry in Barnet? Something to hide? Conspiracy theorists may think that the second Mary Moss, upset that she had been courted only because of her name (not her looks or personality) left Sam and returned to Mother. It makes a good story worthy of a romantic novel!
Tried to get to Huntingdon Record Office last weekend to trace my own Fenland ancestors and plug some gaps in other Kisby family trees.
Unfortunately I only made it two-thirds of the way, due to an unfortunate road accident. It turned out that the car was safe to drive and only cosmetically damaged, but I didn't know that at the time and decided to abort my journey and return home.
It may be quite a while before I get the appetite again to cross the country by car!
Spare a thought for John Kisbee, woodturner of Stamford, Lincolnshire. He was put up for trial for 'crimes' at least three times between 1836 and 1847. For his first offence in 1836, burglary, he avoided prosecution or punishment (one presumes therefore not guilty).
In 1839 John was, intriguingly, put on trial with three other men for "riot". None of them
were found guilty for this offence.
In 1847 John appears again in the Lincolnshire criminal registers, this time he is arrested for 'larceny'. Before his trial can commence John Kisbee dies in Stamford Gaol, leaving a young family and a wife expecting another child.
Why John had his collar felt by the long arm of the law so many times we might never know. He is described as well educated and evidently is also a skilled tradesman. The Kisby's generally seem to avoid falling foul of the law!
However, the Lincolnshire Kisby's have not remained entirely well behaved. In November 2008 a Lincolnshire Kisby (who will remain nameless here) was sent to prison for five and a half years for a "savage, wicked, attrocious" attack in the street, leaving the victim needing extensive facial surgery. Luckily the trial was not taking place in 1830's England, or the Kisby crim may have spent his remaining days in Australia or worse!
I also confirmed for my aunt that she was indeed 'legit' and her parents had been timeously betrothed.
While searching the marriages on A*****y I noticed that, while using the interweb connection at work (after hours, of course) I can access the full 1916-2005 England & Wales marriage records, page scans and all. When I try the same thing using my connection at home I only get the usual tantalising bare essential details - name and location. Very confusing! To be honest I've got far more urgent things to be occupying my time at work. I'll have to momentarily dip-in to A*****y during my marginal time, argh!
My enthusiasm for the new Genealogy social networking website has been dampened. Like many other places on the interweb, it is very dominated by Americans whose default setting is to assume everyone else is from the USA. The website is clunky, the staff seem well-meaning but ill prepared to administer the fledgling venture.
After two weeks the membership (admittedly it is openly and honestly displayed for all to see) has reached 10,000. It is dwarfed, not surprisingly, by the membership of Facebook which boasts 250,000,000.
GenealogyWise currently boasts one Kisby and one Kisbey in its membership. Facebook has approximately 330 Kisby's, 40 Kisbee's and 40 Kisbey's amongst its ranks, together with an inactive Kisby Facebook Group with a membership of 47. The statistics speak for themselves, I may have to wait for several years of consistent steady growth of GenealogyWise before I meet another Kisby there!! This is the downside of having an uncommon and statistically invisible surname.
In fact, with less than 1000 Kisby/ee/ey's worldwide, it's surprising we don't all already know each other!!
Soon to be launched is a new social networking website - GenealogyWise - offering to be a 'Facebook' for family history buffs. Potentially that sounds like a good idea, there are blogs, forums, chatrooms and special interest groups already available. As you can see, I've fallen for the publicity hook line and sinker.
So I've set up a GenealogyWise Group called "Kisby" and hope that its membership will soon rise above one.
http://www.genealogywise.com/group/kisby
Last week I managed to visit the Northamptonshire Record Office, by no means an easy task. It is probably where naughty local government employees are sent as a punishment, surrounded by busy ring roads, isolated from any shops, public transport nodes or civilisation, serviced by only a cheap coffee machine and a box of expensive 'Chari-snacks'.
More frustrating is the fact that the axis of all Kisby's seems to be centred around Peterborough (or Peter-bo-roo-gah as I prefer to call it), in the very northern corner of the county. The borders of five counties are within a few miles of this spot (seven if you include the Soke of Peterborough and the Isle of Ely) and you can guarantee that will mean spending time at half a dozen different county record offices or local history libraries to search the local records of neighbouring parishes!!
Fortunately Peter-bo-roo-gah's very busy parish church of St John has much of its parish register transcribed and indexed. Some of the earliest Kisby's recorded in parish church records can be found listed there, the first being Hellyn Kisby baptised in August 1560.
So finally I have sent off my registration to the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS). It is something I've been putting off for a long time, as I'm not quite wanting my One Name Study to take over my life!!
There were slightly over 300 Kisby's, Kisbee's and Kisbey's listed in the 1881 England & Wales Census. The most 'popular' occupation was Agricultural/Farm Labourer (23 of them), though I suspect getting up before dawn to do hard work in all weathers was not exactly 'popular'. James Kisby of Walsoken, Norfolk, was a Farm Labourer and Lay Methodist Preacher. In 1881 the Kisby's/Kisbee's also included 5 Farmers farming, 3 Bakers baking, 2 Blacksmiths smithing, 2 Innkeepers, a Coal Merchant, a Miller, a Hairdresser, a Gamekeeper... who, you never know, may have had two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.
Apparently in 2002 there were over 600 Kisby's, Kisbee's or Kisbey's in the UK. At that rate of expansion it will be many millennia before we have any chance of taking over the planet.
The weekend before last I paid a visit to Preston, Lancashire, a haunt of my mother's family during the nineteenth century. My great-great grandfather (and his father too) ran a small hotel on the outskirts of the town. To my amazement and delight it is still open today and trading under the same name, the "Grand Junction", a name it has now retained for almost 150 years!
Of course, the most famous Kisby watering hole is "Kisby's Hut" near Papworth Everard, opened by Samuel Kisby circa 1770. It closed recently, after 230+ years trading (though it only held the name "Kisby's Hut" sporadically during that time).
My greatx3 uncle James Kisby was landlord of the "Boat & Anchor" just outside Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. Interestingly, in the 1901 Census he is described as 'Innkeeper & Shepherd', which is certainly a nice trick if you can tend your flock and pour a pint at the same time!! I expect he needed to employ baaaaa staff
;o)
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fabian said:
[this is good]hiyya yes it is shewent t my high school and mi and sum freinds set up that bebo group :(... read more
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Sorry to hear that! I've seen the bebo pages and Lauren really does sound like a popular, likeable and brave... read more
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