Sentimental Sunday: Walnuts, Oxford and the Rector William

Sentimental Sunday: Walnuts, Oxford and the Rector William Noyes

Clip of Oxford University Alumni, Vol 3, Ancestry.com. 5 Jun 2016

The Highly Caffeinated Genealogist likes to plan ahead for future blog posts. Sometimes that is easy if you have been using your research journal in a way that works for you. But I didn't always have research journal and a plan. None of us did, unless we had a job that required a "report" be made of our findings.

However I did take notes and put them in surname notebooks. I dated and sourced them when I could. My job now is to do a "go-over" of my previous work and to make sure where it came from. It is going quite well, thank you.

The weakest area was in the first five generations before me so that is where I concentrated my efforts for some months now. I'm not done yet but I have made plans to blog about that in the near future.

Richard A. Wheeler's History of Stonington, Connecticut is a book that I bought many years ago when I was investigating my family that lived just over the Rhode Island border in Connecticut. I am happy to report that it is out of copyright and the digital version is at Google Books.  This is what Wheeler has to say about the family called Noyes that were the ancestors of those who lived in Stonington, Connecticut. (p. 484-501)

I have a phobia about researching beyond the shores of the United States. Wow! There are so many unproved and non sourced claims of who people were and where they came from. I have notes in my surname notebooks that I will never be able to prove. At least this is a learned family of clergy where I can hope to find some sources and evidence. 

• Does Noyes mean "of the Walnut tree?" I hope not. I am allergic to walnut oil. 
• Will I be able to prove that Rev. William Noyes, rector of Cholderton in Wiltshire, England, was the person claimed on this page?

So, imagine my surprise when I discovered a "shaky" leaf  at Ancestry that listed William as a graduate of Oxford University? I cracked out my surname notebook and did a reading "do-over" of what I found. Not one mention of Oxford University. 

The Highly Caffeinated Genealogist loves a good murder mystery so for years I have watched Inspectors Morse and Lewis solve murders in Oxford, never, ever, thinking that I might have an ancestor who earned a degree there!

The date he matriculated, his age and the date earned his degree are listed! Since I have not much evidence of his birth date, I see that they may have calculated it from the dates given in this "alumni directory". 

More work needs to be done on this "pleb" and not "gent" rector but it amuses me that I have a connection to Oxford University. (gent is gentleman, a person of means and status, and pleb is plebian, a common, everyday person). 

Wait. Isn't this place near Stonehenge? Wiltshire. 

Ancestry.com. Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

Original data: Foster, Joseph. Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886 and Alumni Oxonienses: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714. Oxford: Parker and Co., 1888-1892.