Which John Roser?

Via my father and paternal grandmother I am descended from Ann Roser of Waldron, the daughter of John Roser, son of John and Martha, baptised Jan 1786 in East Hoathly (see Figure 1). I will refer to this John Roser as John Jnr.

Figure 1: My descent from John Roser Jnr.

Martha, sister of John Jnr, was the first Roser entry in the registers of All Saints, Waldron¹ and similarly John Jnr was the first and only Roser baptism in the registers of East Hoathly Parish Church². This indicates that John Jnr’s father, John Snr, had moved to the East Hoathly/Waldron area from another parish.

Unfortunately neither John Snr nor his wife Martha survived long enough to fill in the 1851 census where they would have indicated their place(s) of origin. However John Snr did survive into the era of civil registration and the 1841 census. This at least provides us with several assessments of his age at death. The evidence relating to the identity of John Roser Snr will be analysed to reach a conclusion as to his origins compatible with the Genealogical Proof Standard³:

1. Reasonably exhaustive searches in relevant sources
2. Complete and accurate citations to the sources
3. Analysis and comparison of the relevant sources
4. Resolution of any conflicts between sources
5. A statement of the conclusion with reasons 

1. The Search

The sources searched were as follows:

• The England and Wales Censuses as they became available online resulting in a digital facsimile of the 1841 Census entry for John Roser Snr⁴.
• The England and Wales Civil Registration indexes resulting in a certified copy of the Death registration of John Roser Snr⁵.

Searching parish registers in the Waldron area is difficult as a number of parishes have refused to allow their registers to be filmed (including Waldron and East Hoathly). However the Sussex Family History Group (SFHG) has been building near complete indexes for baptisms (online)⁶, burials (online)⁷ and marriages (CD)⁸. These indexes were used as follows:

• The SFHG Marriage Index, resulting in purchase of a reprograph from East Sussex Record Office (ESRO) of the entry for the marriage of John Roser and Martha Hook (1782, East Hoathly)⁹.
• SFHG Online Baptism Index, resulting in the purchase of reprographs from ESRO of the baptisms of John Roser Jnr² (East Hoathly), Martha Hook¹⁰ (Little Horsted) and Martha Roser¹ (Waldron) plus a list of John Roser baptisms in Sussex in the relevant date range for John Snr.
• SFHG Online Burial Index resulting in the purchase of reprographs from ESRO of the burial entries for John Roser Snr¹¹ and Martha Roser nee Hook¹² (Waldron).

Other indexes were searched for documentation beyond the parish registers.

• A2A (now part of NA Discovery) resulting in an index entry for a settlement certificate from Waldron supplied by John Snr to the parish of East Hoathly¹³. This document did not mention his age.

Sources for details about descendants of John Snr and Martha had already been located and will be noted where relevant.

2. Citations

See the Reference section.

3. Analysis and Comparison

The 1841 census was taken on 6 June 1841. Census takers travelled around a district collecting completed schedules or completing schedules for those unable to do so themselves. These schedules were compiled into enumeration lists for each district and it is these enumeration lists which survive. Thus the lists are derivative records containing primary evidence about the 1841 status of the persons listed. Information collected included the names, occupations and ages of residents and whether they were born in the County of residence. The ages for persons over 15 years of age were meant to be rounded down to the nearest multiple of five. The 1841 census entry for John Snr was a digital facsimile accessed via Ancestry⁴. He is listed as a male, agricultural labourer aged 80 (i.e. 80-84), born in Sussex. He is resident in the household of his son John Jnr, with John Jnr’s wife and their four youngest children (Elizabeth, Martha, Thomas and George). The implication from the 1841 census is that John Snr was born between 1756 and 1761 somewhere in Sussex.

The death certificate was obtained from the General Register Office (GRO)⁵. It contains a facsimile of the certified, manually-written register entry copy held by the GRO (not the original register entry) and thus is a derivative record. The evidence pertaining to the death is primary, direct evidence for the date and cause of death. The age at death is secondary, indirect evidence. The certificate states that John Roser was a 91 year old agricultural labourer when he died of “decay of nature” on 17th November 1844 at Waldron. The informant was “William Burgess, present at the death” The implication from the death certificate is that John Snr was born 1752-3.

The burial entry for John Roser Snr is an ESRO reprograph of the original register page and is thus a surrogate original¹¹. It is indeterminate evidence as there is no indication of who provided the information. The reprograph is direct evidence for the burial of John Roser Snr and indirect evidence for his death and age. The entry states that John Roser, age 92 of Waldron was buried on 21st November 1844. The implication from the burial entry is that John Roser Snr was born 1751-2.

The year of birth implied from these three sources is not consistent, but covers a ten year range from 1751 to 1761. A search of the SFHG Baptism Index produces four possible John Rosers (see table)⁶.

Name	Parents	Date of Baptism	Parish
John Roser	John and Hannah	17 May 1752	Lindfield All Saints
John Roser	John and Hannah	26 Aug 1753	Lindfield All Saints
John Roser	Richard and Ann	11 Oct 1755	Steyning St Andrew
John Roser	Richard and Susanna	19 Aug 1759	Framfield St Thomas

The two Lindfield baptisms match the burial entry and the death certificate ages respectively. The Steyning baptism lies in the middle of the overall range, but in a central gap, the Framfield baptism lies in the middle of the 1841 census range.

4. Resolution

The key to the identification lies in assessing the reliability of the age of John Snr given in the three documents. To do this we need to consider who the person providing the information was and how well informed they were likely to be.

The 1841 census information came from the Roser household where John Snr was living with his son’s family⁴. John is listed as being an agricultural labourer, indicating he was still healthy enough to be working. The ages of persons in the household over 15 have all been rounded down to the nearest 5, so we should read John Snrs age as being in the range 80-84. He was likely present when the information was taken. The accuracy of the census age thus depends upon how well John Snr could keep track of his age. The only evidence we have for this lies in the burial of his wife, Martha. Neither John or Martha were locally born, so accurate knowledge of their ages would not be widely known in the Parish. Despite this, the burial entry for Martha gives an age compatible within a year to her known baptism entry^12,10. It seems likely that John Roser could keep track of his wife’s age, and thus probably of his own.

The accuracy of the death certificate age depends upon the informant’s state of knowledge, in this case one William Burgess⁵. Who was William Burgess and how much did he know about the family? The Roser family in Waldron had thinned down in the 10 years before John Snr’s death. His wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and two of his older grandchildren were dead^{12,14,15,16,17}. Two more of his older grandchildren had moved out of the district, one to Laughton and one to Australia^18,19. Another had just given birth to an illegitimate child²⁰. His son-in-law had remarried and his son was probably already seriously ill with the tuberculosis from which he died in April 1845^21,22. That left the three youngest grandchildren aged from nine to nineteen. Martha (the oldest at 19) married William Samuel Burgess in January 1845²³, so it seems likely that the informant for John Snr’s death certificate was Martha’s boyfriend (see Figure 2). Given Martha’s age, William’s close association with the family could not have been for long and his detailed knowledge of the family members would be questionable.

Figure 2: The Family of John Roser Snr at the time of his death.

 

The informant for the burial entry is not known but is likely to have been either Martha or William Burgess¹¹. It is significant that the age in the burial entry is different to that in the death certificate. The burial entry must therefore be considered as the least reliable of the three pieces of evidence.

As well as the documentary evidence pertaining to John’s age, we have evidence relating to the background of Martha Hook. While Martha was baptised in Little Horsted¹⁰, other baptisms and removal orders indicated the family moved several times between Little Horsted and the adjacent parish of Framfield, home of one of our possibles.

5. Conclusion

The analysis above indicates that the most reliable indicator of the year of birth of John Snr is the 1841 census entry. John was alive and healthy at the time and the accuracy of the information on his wife’s burial entry indicates that he could probably keep track of his own age. The baptism compatible with this evidence is the 1759 Framfield baptism. This conclusion would place John in close proximity to Martha Hook while growing up and would make him the probable brother of the Elizabeth Roser who married William Betts in East Hoathly in 1775²⁸ (see Figure 3).

 

Figure 3: Parishes mentioned in this blog post.

References

1. Baptism of Martha Roser, baptised 6 January 1794, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
2. Baptism of John Roser, baptised 6 January 1786, East Hoathly Parish Register, East Hoathly, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
3. Jones, Thomas W., Mastering Genealogical Proof, National Genealogical Society, Arlington, 2013.
4. Census record for John Roser, aged 80, Parish of Waldron, Sussex, 1841 England and Wales Census, The National Archives, HO107/113/18, UK Census Collection, Ancestry.com, accessed 3 Nov 2006
5. Death certificate of John Roser, died 17 November 1844, registered December quarter 1844, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 349, no. 342.
6. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
7. Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Burial Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
8. Sussex Family History Group, The Sussex Marriage Index (Up to 1837) (CD ROM). Lewes, UK, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.
9. Marriage of John Roser and Martha Hook, married 28 October 1782, East Hoathly Parish Register, East Hoathly, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
10. Baptism of Martha Hook, baptised 26 May 1765, Little Horsted Parish Register, Little Horsted, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
11. Burial of John Roser, buried 21 November 1844, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
12. Burial of Martha Roser, buried 24 July 1836, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
13. Access to Archives, ‘Search result: Index entry for Settlement Certificate for John Rosar and wife Martha’, http://www.a2a.org.uk/search/documentxsl.asp?com=1&i=2&nbKey=1 of, accessed 6 Jun 2008 (site now incorporated in the National Archives Discovery Database).
14. Burial of Martha Evenden, buried 30 May 1824, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
15. Death certificate of Ann Roser, died 15 January 1843, registered March quarter 1843, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 369, no. 258.
16. Death certificate of William Roser, died 28 August 1839, registered September quarter 1839, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 269, no. 118.
17. Burial of Mary Roser, buried 26 October 1834, All Saints Waldron Parish Register, Waldron, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
18. Marriage of David Davey and Ann Roser, married 1 February 1834, All Saints Laughton Parish Register, Laughton, Sussex, England, p. 33, no. 97, FHL microfilm 1067216, item 10.
19. New South Wales State Archives, NRS-5314 Entitlement certificates of persons on bounty ships, unpaginated, Entitlement Certificate for John & Mary Roser, 1838, Ancestry.com, ‘New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896’, accessed 22 Jun 2020.
20. Baptism index entry for William Roser, baptised 28 July 1844, Sussex Family History Group, ‘Data Archive on Frontis, Baptism Data’, http://sfhg.frontis.co/bin/index.php, accessed 10 April 2009.
21. Marriage Index entry for William Evenden, married June Qtr 1839, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 150.
22. Death certificate of John Roser, died 28 April 1845, registered June quarter 1845, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 337, no. 372.
23. Marriage certificate of William Burgess & Martha Roser, married 18 January 1845, registered March quarter 1845, Uckfield registration district, General Registry Office, England, vol. 7, p. 619, no. 38.
24. Baptism of Ann Hook, baptised 10 July 1757, St Thomas a Becket Framfield Parish Register, Framfield, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1886241, item 3.
25. Baptism of William Hook, baptised 16 February 1759, St Michael Little Horsted Parish Register, Little Horsted, Sussex, England, Reprograph obtained from East Sussex Record Office.
26. Access to Archives, ‘Search result: Index entry for Removal Order for William Hook, wife Elizabeth and daughter to Little Horsted’, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=179-par3433 of, accessed 25 Apr 2009 (site now incorporated in the National Archives Discovery Database).
27. Baptism of Elizabeth Hook, baptised 2 May 1761, St Thomas a Becket Framfield Parish Register, Framfield, Sussex, England, FHL Film 1886241, item 3.
28. Marriage of William Betts and Elizabeth Roser married 19 December 1775,Sussex Family History Group, The Sussex Marriage Index (Up to 1837) (CD ROM). Lewes, UK, Sussex Family History Group, 2005.