A-Z Challenge 2016: S is for Samuel Murch 1778-1849

Samuel Murch was my 4 x great grandfather, and obviously a good person.  I say 'obviously', because I have found two little pieces about him in local newspapers:

Exeter & Plymouth Gazette, 30 Oct 1841:
Column devoted to the Agricultural and Industrial Association Dinner at Subscription Room, Canniford's London Tavern
"To the Journeyman who has worked longest in the employ of the same master, £1. - Samuel Murch, Sen., 38 years employed in the Ottery Factory, 18 years during the time of the present respected proprietor, Mr. Newbery."
and his death notice:
Small article from Exeter & Plymouth Gazette (Saturday January 20, 1849) in Deaths column:
"Jan.16, at Ottery St. Mary, Mr. Samuel Murch, in the 71st years of his age.  He was employed 44 years in the Ottery Factory, - the last 26 years in the silk department of the present proprietor.  He was a trustworthy and faithful servant."

Samuel had his faith to sustain him.  Or did he? It seems as though the Murches were constantly searching for ‘the truth’.  The Murch family were nonconformists: Protestant Dissenters, then Presbyterians, then Congregationalists – and nonconformists were often associated with being hard workers and entrepreneurs.


Samuel features in the Murch Surname Study.

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved

A-Z Challenge 2016: C is for Child Murch buried 1750

No, this isn't some sort of weird-and-wonderful name in my family tree, but a rather sad tale.  Gideon Murch and his wife, Elizabeth, had eight children.  Or did they?  Gideon and Elizabeth were nonconformists, and records of their children's baptisms exist in the nonconformist registers.  However, a burial also occurs which makes me wonder if all of their first three children survived.

Gideon and Elizabeth were married in 1744 in Ottery St Mary, Devon, England.  Their first child, Elizabeth, arrived in 1745, followed by baby Samuel in 1748, and James in 1749.  But then there is a curious 1750 entry in the burial register: A child of Gideon Murch.  So who was it? Elizabeth, Samuel, or James (or even a sickly baby)?  The clerk at the time did not even leave a clue as to the gender of the buried child, and I have a dreadful feeling that the nonconformist graveyard in Ottery St Mary has been concreted over.  (Hopefully, someone can tell me otherwise).

So, somewhere, there is a poor little mite (boy or girl) who was buried under the name 'Child'.  Almost like those parents who register the birth of their child without having given it a name yet, so in the indexes it is down as 'Male' or 'Female'.  At least by modern 1822, the burial register said "infant son of Samuel and Mary Murch".

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved