When We Were English, Part XXX

Some More Names and Thoughts on Worcester Holymans
by Glenn N. Holliman

From the Calendar of Wills and Administrations of the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Worchester, 1661 – 1699, we have more names of Holymans who wrote wills.  In Bedfordshire, there are few wills of Holymans; in Worcestershire during the same time period, many.  Strange.  The archivist in Bedford told me only about 5% of the population in that shire wrote wills in the 1600s.  More did so in Worcester.

1672, Aug. 21, John Hollyman, Bromsgrove.

1687, May 9 – Hugh Hollyman, Leigh.

1691, Aug. 7, Thomas Holliman, Bromsgrove.

At the Leigh St. Edburga parish from a 1700s tombstone, these eroded figures of two children and grisly skull remind us that young people died often before reaching adulthood.  

As my research time was limited, I cannot say that a Judith and Christopher Holyman or other Virginia Holymans did not come from Worcester.  Additional hours must be dedicated to reading the microfilm of each will (looking for names) and parish records, as no parish index exists for Worcestershire (sigh…).  Only then will be able to rule out or welcome Worcestershire as the ancestral home of at least some of the Hollimans.  So much more work to be done.

BUT no name of Christopher or Judith leaped out as such as surfaced in Bedford, England.  So for now, I still favor the Bedford Holymans as the origin of our Virginia family.

Adjacent to St. Edburga parish is the medieval tithe barn, now maintained by English Heritage.  Members of the community were required to support the church (and the civil functions it carried out) through a 10% 'tax' on their harvest.  Hence the need for a parish barn to hold the 'tithe'.

A closing thought – the Severn River runs south from Worcester into the Bristol Channel.  Bristol, we are told by historians, was the chief port for English relocating to the American colonies.  So if one wanted to immigrate to America, Worcestershire would be a convenient location from which to begin an odyssey to the New World.

Therefore as a note of interest, as Christopher and Judith Holyman were transported to Virginia in 1650 sponsored by a man named John Cox, I found this recording in “The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1607-1660” by Peter Wilson Coldham, Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing, 1987:

“April 9, 1650 – Sir Henry Chicheley to be released and allowed to pass to Virginia on the usual security .  Pass also for Thomas Cox and Robert Pigge to go to Virginia.”  Hmm....

Next a visit to the Buckinghamshire Archives, still searching for the ancestors of Christopher Holyman, Sr. (1618 - 1691)....