The Baughs of Virginia

The first Baugh to arrive in Virginia was Thomas Baugh, son of John Baugh of Twyning in Gloucestershire, who arrived on the Berkeley Plantation ship the Supply, out of Bristol, some time before 23rd January 1624, the date on which he appeared on the Muster of Inhabitants of the College Land in Henrico, Virginia. Thomas hadn’t appeared on the List of Living and Dead in Virginia made on February 16th 1623, but that isn’t to say he wasn’t there. He does appear in another Muster of Inhabitants in 1625, however, living at West and Shirley Hundred. After that he may well have gone on to found the dynasty from which most of the Baughs in America are descended, or he may have died of plague or been killed by Indians the day after the Muster. There is simply no further trace of Thomas anywhere in the colony.

That isn’t to say he wasn’t in Henrico, of course. Local records there weren’t kept until around 1632, so even if Thomas was there living a full and happy life there is no way for anyone now to know. All we do know is that the next Baugh to make an appearance in the records of Henrico County was John Baugh, whose name appears on a grant of land made in 1638. He could, at a pinch, have been the son of Thomas, tradition, however, tells us John was his cousin, and the brother of William Baugh, who also made an appearance around this time.

The Visitation of Worcestershire 1682-3 says of Thomas Baugh, son of John of Twyning, that he was absent in Virginia in 1634. It makes no similar claim for John and William, but then it does give them the wrong parents so may not be too trustworthy in that respect.

When John Baugh of Twyning died in 1640 he left bequests to his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret and his son Rowland, as well as his nephew Edward and his brother Richard. There was no mention of Thomas.

When William Baugh of Twyning died in 1632 he left his son William a lump sum £120 and son John an annuity for life, so we assume they were living in Twyning at the time. His wife Mary he bequeathed an annuity of £20 a year. Everything else went to William’s other son, Edward.

Richard Baugh of Twyning died in 1642. He had no children of his own so he left bequests to all his nephews and to the children of his nephew, Rowland. All his goods and chattels he left to his nephew, Edward, son of his brother William. The only nephews of Richard who he didn’t mention in his will were Thomas, John and William. Not proof in itself that the latter two had gone to Virginia, but certainly coincidental that John and William, who had inherited money from their father in 1630, seemed to have left Twyning by 1642, around the time two brothers of the same name had begun to appear in the records of Henrico County.

Or one of them had, anyway, if we are to be strictly accurate. John Baugh appeared on a list of Virginia Land Grants for Henrico County in 1638, 1645, 1650 and 1672. If you are to believe some of the web sites concerned with the family he was a plantation owner who was elected a burgess in 1641 and 1644. Whether or not he had any children isn’t known, but there was a James Baugh who was granted land in Bristol Parish, Henrico County in 1683, and who was on the Henrico County Rent Roll of April 1705 working 458 acres of land. A John Baugh, who was on the same rent roll working 448 acres and who was granted land in the county in 1739, was more than likely another connection.

William Baugh, the probable brother of the first John, was a Justice in Henrico and Charles City County in 1656 and 1669. His only mention amongst people receiving grants of land in the county was in 1668, and that was a tract of land he gave first to his grandson, also William, and then deeded to his granddaughter, Priscilla, in 1674. In 1679 Mr William Baugh, of the Curles, appeared on the list of Henrico County Tythes with a rating of five. John Baugh of Turkey Island had a rating of three. William died in Henrico County on 1st April 1687. His son, another William, had already died in 1676, leaving four children: William, Thomas, Mary and Priscilla, who married William Farrar in 1682.

My book about these and other members of the Baugh family, The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is an invaluable aid for anyone interested in researching the Baugh Family history.
Starting by outlining the various spellings of the name and where they originated, the book goes on to show how, since there were so few people who went by the name of Baugh and its variations in early times, most of these people were related both to each other, and to the branch of the family who first bore the coat of arms during the fifteenth century.
Several possible alternative origins of that branch of the family, in Normandy and in the Welsh Marches, are examined. Each one being weighed up against the evidence in official documents of the time, as well as information provided by the College of Arms, to see which, in the author’s opinion, have the most credence. 

I first became interested in the Baugh family when I was researching the history of the house where I live, and their name kept cropping up.

They weren't the only family who had lived in the house before me nor even, as it turned out, the ones who had first built it, but they did seem to pop up in my researches more than any other family, and they did seem to have been very important in south Shropshire, so I began to jot down anything I read about them, whether it was related to my house or not.

There had been another branch of the family bearing the same coat of arms living some miles away in Gloucestershire at the same time as those who had lived in my house had been living there, but without any obvious connection between them other than the shared coat of arms, and I began collecting facts about them as well, intent on finding out what the connection between the two families was.

It took me sixteen years of spare moments spent poring over documents in local record offices, reading wills, parish registers, lay subsidies and other official documents, and surfing the internet for other records kept further afield in Britain, as well as in countries such as Argentina, Canada and the USA, to settle in my mind what that connection was, by which time I had accrued so many facts about both branches of the family, about other people of the same name with no connection at all, and still others who hadn't seemed to have any connection with the Baughs who had lived in my house until my researches showed that they did, that I decided to share my knowledge with other people, by turning it into a book.

Not every branch of the family as it is today is represented, that would be impossible, but most of them get a mention, and where there are links to be shown between seemingly unconnected branches of the family they are shown. The Baugh Family of England, Scotland, East Indies and the USA, from their earliest origins until modern times, is available from Amazon Kindle, at the give away price of $3.99, or £2.55.

Ashen Faggots Fall Victim to Die-back Disease

The pond-rous ashen faggot from the yard
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall
Conveys with speed; where, on the rising flames
(Already fed with store of massy brands).
It blazes soon; nine bandages it bears,
And as they each disjoin (so custom wills),
A mighty jug of sparkling cyder's brought,
With brandy mixt to elevate the guests.
1795, author unknown.

                                    

                                       

                                          

       A damping day in Shropshire, and I've been out walking along the Roman Road at the far end of the village, and thinking about Christmas. Or, in particular, thinking about the threat to one particular tradition, still carried on in some parts of the country, of burning an Ashen Faggot at Christmas. Because, now we have the Ash Dieback Disease, caused by Chalara Fraxinea fungus, in the country, we’re not allowed to remove any ash wood from any areas where the infection is present, and only allowed to remove it from uninfected areas if we’ve removed all leaves and shoots first, and the shoots are what an ash faggot consists of.

    The tradition is a very old one indeed, though possibly not one the Romans ever indulged in, because it originated with the Norsemen, who held anything to do with Ash trees to be sacred.

    The custom was that a bundle of ash sticks, known as a faggot, was bound with nine green lengths of ash bands, or 'beams', preferably all from the same tree. On Christmas Eve the faggot was put on a fire that had been lit with the remnants of the previous year’s faggot. Everybody would then gather around the hearth watching the faggot burn. The men servants would sit around drinking cider whilst they watched the faggot burning, and as each withy was burned through a new jug of cider was brought out to them to replenish their mugs with. The women who were present, the unmarried ones amongst them anyway, would each choose one of the green bands to be theirs, and the woman who selected the first band to ignite and break would be the next one to get married, they believed. In some places, every time a binding band broke, a quart of cider would be passed around and a toast would be made.

   The Christianised version of the use of ash to celebrate Christmas, was that it was the wood that Mary used to light a fire in order to warm Jesus. In Romany lore it was thought that Jesus was born in a field and that he was kept warm by the heat of an ash fire. The holly, ivy and pine trees hid the infant and were allowed to keep their foliage all year. The oak and the ash, on the other hand, showed where he was hiding and they were condemned to die every winter.

   In the garden, look out for the fragrant, short-tubed, creamy-white flowers, carried above oval dark green leaves, of the spreading semi-evergreen shrub, Lonicera fragrantissima, which flowers during the winter and has red berries in May.