Tidying up the Philpott tree

My family history ‘to do’ list for the new year makes it sound so straightforward: “tidy up Sayers and Philpott trees ready to submit to the Sussex Family History Group MyTree project”.  A worthy task.  And good to upload these ones before the Mitchells as that tree is truly vast…. The Sussex Family History Group have, for a little while now, been encouraging members to submit trees which they can then store (a good way of preserving research) and which can then form a database for linking members with each other.  Submitting my Sussex trees is something I’d been meaning to do for some time, but you know how it is.  Life continues apace and you never quite get round to it.

Well the Sayers tree was relatively straightforward.  I’d been working on that one for much of last year, so I knew it was up to date and fairly comprehensive.  I’d never attempted to save a Gedcom file before, but I did this from my tree on Roots Magic and successfully sent it to the society.

One down.  Ah but the Philpotts…  When I came to look, I hadn’t actually done as much work on this family as I thought I had.  In many ways this has been great, as it’s given me something to get my teeth into during these cold lockdown days.  But oh the Philpotts have led me a merry dance!    

The Philpott tree has been less about ‘tidying up’ and more about actually doing some primary research.  My maternal great grandmother was Mary Philpott, who married my great grandfather William Mitchell in West Grinstead, Sussex, in 1877.  I remember well the day in West Sussex Record Office when we finally tracked down the marriage of Mary’s parents, Thomas Philpott and Eliza Sayers.  In the days prior to parish records being on Ancestry, Family Search and the SFHG members’ area, it was one of those memorable ‘eureka’ moments.  Thomas came from West Grinstead as did his father Francis before him and his grandfather John before that.

My Granny, as I am sure I have said before, told me what she knew of her family while I was still in my teens and I still have the rough trees that I drew up then, back in the 70s.  I also have a few notes that she wrote for me, including the fact that one William Philpott (a great nephew of Thomas) had a business in Croydon with the catch-phrase:  “ladders light and ladders strong”.  And this was where I found the first snag in getting Roots Magic up to date – I couldn’t find any evidence for William’s father being the son of Edmund Philpott as Granny had thought.  That’s because he wasn’t.  Edumund had no children. Granny had got the wrong brother.  In fact there were 8 rather than 6 siblings and William’s grandparents were in fact John Philpott and his wife Rebecca Chantler.  I then discovered that John and Rebecca had 7 children, not just the 5 which Granny appeared to know about, and they were all baptised in either Horsham or Southwater, between 1844 and 1857.  I say ‘appeared to’ as a lot of their children were contemporaries in Croydon in the 1920s to 30s and Granny’s family were very good at keeping in touch with each other, so surely she must have known about them?  Well, no matter.  Undoubtedly the information Granny gave me all those year ago gave me an amazing head start and some fun facts which I could not have known from other sources.

Of these 7 children I have discovered that Daniel went to Croydon and became a Grocer’s Assistant. Sarah died as a small child. Mary (Polly) married William (Harry) Head who was a brewer’s cooper in Guildford. John became a railway signalman in Croydon, married Jane Trish and they had 7 children of whom William with his rustic arches and ladders at Waddon was the fourth, and the seventh child, Leonard, survived WW1. Emily married William Hiscox, also a railway signalman in Croydon.  They had one son Ernest and both died while he was a small child so he was subsequently brought up by his aunt Mary, who had no children of her own.  As for Thomas and James, I haven’t yet got to them.   

Going back, however, the spelling variations of Philpott have made it a challenge to track the family down.  It seems to have changed at the whim of the census enumerator or church clerk, and in the days before widespread literacy I guess that makes sense.  My earliest known ancestor on this particular family tree was Francis Fillpot, married in 1681 in Cowfold, Sussex.  Over the years the spelling has varied between Fillpot, Filpott, Philpot (early 18^th century), Phillpot, Phillpott, gradually becoming consistently Philpott by the later nineteenth century.  As some databases and sites accept wildcards and others do not, I’ve had to try to think creatively to track this family down!

I realise that I am nowhere near being ready to send this lot to SFHG, in fact they will keep me busy for some time to come!  My great great grandfather Thomas had a brother Frank whose son reputedly died ‘in India’.  I would love to find what this was all about.  His sister Mary married a William Woolgar, which is a good Sussex name and his sister Sarah married an Allen Tidey, similarly a good Sussex name.

Oh yes, there’s plenty still to do.  I don’t want to wish the months away, but maybe ‘tidying up the Philpott tree’ will again be on my to do list for 2022!