Cruses of Kenton

The marriage certificates from the Exeter Marriage Challenge have proved very helpful in sorting out the Kenton Cruse tree from South Devon, and I've been able to pass on copies to Sue Froud who is descended from this line. Sue has a wonderful website where she provides an interesting account of the Kenton Cruses, some of whom later moved to Exeter. Many of the Kenton Cruses were blacksmiths.

The Kenton tree goes back to Samuel Cruse who was born some time between 1753 and 1761 in Broadwoodkelly, Devon. Samuel lived to a great age and was still alive at the time of the 1851 census. He seems to have had difficulty remembering his age, as he declared that he was 80 in the 1841 census but 98 in the 1851 census! Samuel married Mary Discombe in 1782 in Kenton and they had eight children.

Samuel's eldest son, also called Samuel, was the black sheep of the Kenton Cruse family. On 2nd January 1851 he was charged with stealing some hay, a knife and a pick-axe. For some reason he was discharged but was then re-arrested and sentenced to transportation for 10 years. The sentence must have subsequently been commuted as Samuel, age 70, is found in the 1851 census in the Devon County Prison in Exeter.

Another DNA breakthrough

The DNA project continues to provide surprises. We now have a big breakthrough with the large Australian tree. The vast majority of the Cruwyses in Australia are descended from John Cruwys and Elizabeth Prichard who married in 1817 in Westminster, London. Their son, John George Cruwys, died in 1877 and two years later his widow Sarah Cruwys emigrated to Australia with her family. They sailed on the Blair Athole, arriving in Sydney on 4th March 1879. Despite much searching we have been unable to find any record of the baptism of John Cruwys senior. However, a descendant from this line has taken the DNA test and his results have now been received. He matches on 34 out of 37 markers with an English tester who is descended from the Wiveliscombe Cruwys tree. This line goes back to John Cruwys and Jone Lee who married in 1708 in Oakford in North Devon. Their son Richard Cruwys moved to Fitzhead in Somerset where he married Betty Moor. Later generations of the family settled nearby in Wiveliscombe. In 1794 Richard's son John Cruwys tried unsuccessfully to bring a claim against the Cruwys Morchard estate in the Court of Chancery. He claimed that he was a descendant of John Cruwys of Cheriton Fitzpaine, the shoemaker mentioned in the will of the Reverend John Cruwys of Cruwys Morchard.

The 34/37 match indicates that the two men have a 91.75% probability of sharing a common ancestor within 16 generations and a 99.21% probability of sharing a common ancestor within 24 generations. Further research will now be necessary to establish precisely where the two lines link, but at least we now have a focus for our research.

The testers from the Australian and Wiveliscombe trees rather surprisingly both belong to haplogroup G. They are predicted to be in haplogroup G2 but a haplogroup backbone test is required to confirm this prediction. Haplogroup G is very rare in the British Isles and only around 1% or 2% of men belong to this haplogroup. Further information on haplogroup G can be found here. Further information about the DNA project can be found here.

What this result also means is that we now have two distinct Cruwys groups, which is somewhat unexpected in view of the rarity of the surname. (There were only 126 people with the surname Cruwys in the 2002 UK Electoral Register.) The first haplogroup G result was so surprising that I initially assumed that it was a rogue result and was perhaps the result of a so-called "non-paternal event" in more recent times. With the two matching results from two men with the same surname this is clearly not the case. Oakford is just a few miles away from Cruwys Morchard, the ancestral parish of the Cruwys family. It seems inconceivable that the surname could develop independently in the same area of North Devon. I would therefore guess that there has been a non-paternal event in the distant past in one of the two Cruwys lines. The picture will become clearer as we test more people and more results are received. It is proving to be a most interesting voyage of discovery.

A DNA breakthrough

We have another interesting match from the DNA Project. The results are now through for the tester who is descended from the Berkshire/Wiltshire Cruse tree. He matches on 36 out of 37 markers with the tester from the South African Cruse tree. According to the Family Tree DNA Tip calculator the probability that the two men share a common ancestor within eight generations is 88.06%. Within 12 generations the probability increases to 97.1%. This result is particularly exciting because so far all attempts to find the origins of the South African tree have proved fruitless. I wrote about the search for Henry Cruse in one of my first blog postings entitled Shipwrecked in South Africa. Since that time countless records have been searched, particularly in London. A number of potential candidates have been identified but all the Henrys found so far have had to be eliminated as we have been able to track them through the English censuses and civil registration records. The DNA match is particularly welcome as it gives us a much more specific focus for the research. It was stated on Henry's death certificate that he was born in Great Britain. We will now be able to narrow the focus of the research and look specifically at the Wiltshire and Berkshire records in the hope that one day we will find the elusive baptism.

Exeter marriages

I have received a bumper selection of marriage certificates from fellow Guild member Des Gander following his hard work on the recent Exeter Marriage Challenge. Des searched through all the parish registers at the Devon Record Office in the Exeter Registration District from 1837 to 1911 and was able to extract the full certificate details for the following marriages:

- 1839 Robert Cruse (son of Samuel Cruse) and Sarah Cockwill

- 1842 James Cruse (father's details blank) and Elizabeth Cruse (daughter of Edward Cruse)

- 1849 Anna Maria Cruse (daughter of Robert Cruse) and Thomas Hicks

- 1850 Robert Cruse (son of Robert Cruse) and Martha Conway

- 1855 John Pester Cruse (son of John Cruse) and Fanny Sheppard

- 1869 Daniel Richard Cruse (son of John Cruse) Mary Jane Scanes

- 1872 Catharine Fanny Cruse (daughter of Samuel Cruse) and George Tayler

- 1875 Albert Cruse (son of William Cruse) and Eva Bartlett

- 1875 Joseph Cruse (son of John Cruse) and Grace Snell Mellow

If you are researching any of these families please get in touch.