Gregorius Wildbore: Now That's a Name!

Gregorius Wildbore. It has a certain strength when you say it out loud. I imagine the man who had this name bestowed on him - strong, tall, a brave warrior...... but in all likelihood he was short, thin and stoop-shouldered from years of toil. 

Gregorius was my 11th Great-grandfather on my maternal side, and he was born ca 1550 in Kent England, probably in Thanet. I suspect he was a farmer, struggling to grow a few crops in the tiny parish town of St. Mary Minster, for that is where he married, raised his 7 known children, and died in 1606.

1571 Marriage Georgig (Gregorius) Wildbore & Alice Pamphlett (bottom line)

1606 Burial of Gregorius Wildbore (bottom line)

I am lucky to have found a copy of Gregorius' will but it is not easy reading. In the will he is named as George Wildbore which is a bit of a letdown from the romantic notion of a strong and regal Gregorius. But reality is reality and I know that Gregorius was just the Latin rendition of his very ordinary name.

1606 Will of George Wildbore

Larger PDF file is available for anyone wanting to give reading his will a try. The bottom section of the will is  here

In his will, which I have struggled with for many years, I have only been able so far to read "Alice my wife and Edward Wildbore my son" (Edward, who was baptised in 1580, is my 10th great-grandfather) and "Joan [Colly?] the wife of Thomas [Colly?]" and "Jerome Wildbore my son". 

Perhaps one day I will be able see the original again instead of the print I made from the original microfilm where I first found the will.

I spent time last week searching online church and parish records for Thanet Kent and have had fun and success (a good combination!) with my mother's British roots. Her family lineage goes back to 1500s Ramsgate Kent area for the most part and I have not done a lot of research on them before. It's a good feeling to organize my notes from years past and acquire copies of original cerificates to add to a book I am putting together for my children. 

It is fascinating to me to learn that Minster in Thanet originally started as a monastic settlement in 670AD. The parish church of St. Mary-the-Virgin was built during Norman times. It is quite possible that my ancestors go back to this time. I have literally dozens of surnames of ancestors who lived and died in this small area from at least the early 1500s to mid 1800s.

Not much housework or mundane chores are getting done this week in our household as I am treating myself to a week of genealogy research right here at home! If you have not done this I urge you to set aside a few days or a week and devote yourself to organizing your previous research and looking for new items to add to your tree.