Bit of decipthering required please :)

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Could any kind soul have a look at the following marriage of my GGPx8 on ancestry please and confirm or otherwise my take on the image. My first dutch lot

Name: Francis Coleman
Marriage Date: 31 Dec 1655
Parish: St Mary, Whitechapel
County: Middlesex
Borough: Tower Hamlets
Spouse: Hester Vermeulen
Record Type: Marriage

Francis Coleman of the Parish of Wapping Mariner aged 22 years . Hester Vermeulen of the Parish of Katherines Tower spinster aged 19 years daughter of John Vermuelen of the same publised three xxxxxxx Lords days at the close of the morning service(it actually looks like "exercise??) in the public meeting place commonly called Mary White Chapel church in the County of Middlesex one the 28th day of October and one the 4th and 11th day of December 1655 and the said Francis Coleman and Hester Vermeulen were married before Saloman Smith Esq one of the justices of the peace of the peace for the County of Middlesex on the 31st day of December 1655. Witnesses present John Vermuelen and Ambrose Coleman.

Many thanks

[Elaine ..Spain]

I think it is "three several Lords Days"

There is a similar reference in the first paragraph of the following link

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=56495

[Olde Crone Holden]

Heather

Just in case you haven't realised, this is a CIVIL marriage contracted under Oliver Cromwell's interregnum regime and not a church marriage.

You are very lucky that this has survived as most of these civil records were destroyed by the Clergy when they got back in!

OC

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Thanks Elaine, I thought it was several, but it didnt make sense. I guess it has a different meaning/connotation at that time.

OC, really - I wondered why it said about the Meeting Place, and Justice of Peace a bit odd. What meaning would that have OC please? I mean, were all marriages civil during that period?

And any ideas whether its saying service or exercise please?

Oh just read that reference Elaine, very helpful

I think this is Hester's mum's burial:

Text: 10 Dec 1679 Hester Varmulen in Chancell 13 Dec 1679
Book: Burials (Burial)
Collection: Middlesex: St. Katherine By The Tower - Parish Registers, 1666-1695

Sorry, but what does in chancell mean please? I mean does the burial place have any relevance?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Yes, the word would be exercise, I think, not service - it was forbidden to hold church services during the interregnum.

All marriages had to be performed in a "public meeting place" which was either the market place or the church gates, lol, and had to be performed by either a justice of the peace or by a "parish recorder", that is, someone of standing in the community who could read and write sufficiently to keep the records. In many rural areas this was....the ex Vicar or Priest, pmsl. You then have the ludicrous situation of the parish recorder keeping parish (but civil) records.

Of course, there was a brisk trade in secret religious ceremonies. With the usual awkwardness which we Brits are famous for, the Vicars and Priests who had previously been qwuite lax in keeping written records, now kept meticulous but secret ones and some of these survived the interregnum and were written up in subsequent church records.

However, many clergy had long and spiteful memories. Those couples who were married in civil ceremonies and who did not compensate the clergy in some way, either then or later, were considered unmarried by the church and at that period (end of 1600s and into 1700s) you will often see someone named as "Smith or Jones" meaning the parents had married in a civil ceremony which the church did not recognise.

Many of the interregnum records were destroyed by returning clergy.

OC

[Anne in Carlisle]

I might be wrong but I would have thought "in chancell" meant just that .... in the chancel of the church! Very posh! Have a look at some of the other burials, which usually seem to say "in churchyard" or similar.

Anne

[Christine in Herts]

[a] "several" has the same kind of root as "sever", so it just means "separate" or "different" (as in "not the same"). There's no point in allowing the banns all to be called on a single Sunday: you're trying to get the local populace to spot if there's something dodgy going on. If you're allowed to get them called all at once, you could pick your moment for when people who might have known about your "skeleton" are all away.

[b] You don't tend to get buried in the chancel unless you have some real clout: senior clergy, or major (financial) patron of the parish.

Christine

[Elaine ..Spain]

There is a reference to a Hester Coleman on the following link - under the section headed John Vermulen

http://www.traynedbandes.org.uk/content.php?content=men

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Oh, only just came back to this. Thanks so much everyone. Well, the Colemans are my Acton line - them what were descended from Edward 1 So no doubt some money and influence floating around.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Should we curtsey now??

anne

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Oh gawd Elaine, how on earth did you find that!!! Thats amazing, wonderful and my flesh and blood

I knew Hester left my GGFx5 Charles Acton two tenanments at Eastcheap and also land at Plumstead Common as we have her will. Amazing thing was she cut out his father but gave Charles Acton this stuff. Well, well, how lovely, always something out there to find. It ties in that he was a tailor (which I didnt know either) as the GGFx6 was one of the lesser sons of Sir Walter Acton and was apprenticed as a mercer. Ive found several refs to his premises selling cloth in Stepney so I dare say a tailor would tie in neatly Well, that has made my day, thank you, thank you, thank you I know wonder if this is why Charles' grandson John Cook Acton gave his occupation (at one of many trials he got involved in!) as a Burgher of Antwerp. May be he was living there because of family connections.

Did you just do a google search?

[Elaine ..Spain]

It was just on a google search - not sure what I put in but found it when I was trying to help decipher your first post.

[Christine in Herts]

In case you don't already know, when you're using Google, you need to put names into inverted commas. The search treats everything between inverted commas as a single item, instead of searching for the bits of name separately. That gets critical, if any part of the name is something else (I have CHRISTMAS, FROST, BROWN, WAR... in my tree!)

Christine

[Heather Positive Thinker]

Thanks people, really cheered me up having a bit of new stuff to follow up on. We never had the name of the land at Plumstead but we have a clue in the earlier will now which mentions Horseshoe Farm, Plumstead common. How exciting.