By LucyAnn Curling & Clive Boyce

Charles Cotton provides the basis for many of the family trees published on John and Mercy Curling and their descendants in The History and Antiquities of the Church and parish of St Laurence Thanet in the County of Kent, published 1895.  The relevant part of Cotton’s record is:

…William Curling married in 1651 Ann Maxted who was living in 1660, by whom he had issue one son and two daughters; his Will is dated 1660, and proved in 1662 at Canterbury; of the daughters Elizabeth and Ann nothing is known, but the son John Curling married Mercy Long on the 17^th January, 1693, by whom he had eleven children.  In 1713 he built North Chilton House, which, though modernised, and with wooden transoms and mullions is yet standing as the farm-house. The old house at Chilton ………..was called South Chilton House, it stood at the opposite corner of the road, diagonally, in the garden behind the present Chilton Tavern, and also belonged to the Curlings, some of whom continued to reside there until it was demolished at the commencement of the present century.

John Curling made his Will Feb. 27^th, 1720, which was proved in 1721 by Daniel his son, sole executor.  Of his eleven children, six were daughters, of whom Mercy married George Osborne of Lidden, near Dover;  Elizabeth married William Harnett of Spratling Street, in the parish of St. Laurence;  Ann married Henry Belsey, of Coldred Walsingham;  Mary married Peter Harnett, and Margaret married Capt. Martin Read;  Jane died unmarried, before her father.  Of the sons, John Curling married Elizabeth Kirby of Thanet;  Daniel Curling appears to have succeeded his father at Chilton;  Alexander Curling married Mary Rainier;  Thomas Curling seems to have died unmarried; and William Curling married Ann Shepherdson.

The registers of many of the East Kent parishes are now available online via Findmypast and with the help of this very convenient facility we aim to confirm and perhaps extend Cotton’s findings.

Current Findings

The marriage of William Curling to Ann Maxted was on 27 September 1651 at St Lawrence (page 116 of the Composite Register for St Lawrence).

Cotton identified three children: Elizabeth, Anne and John and we can add their baptisms from the St Lawrence register:

Elizabeth                           17 Jan 1653                       90*

Ann                                     7 Jan 1653/4                   176*

John                                     6 Mar 1658                     181*

*page of Composite Parish Register form Findmypast.

It appears that there were at least two more children baptised at St Lawrence:

Mary                                   28 Aug 1656                    179*       see also Familysearch.

Sara                                     16 Oct 1660                    184*

The name Sara is very indistinct in the Register but consistent with Sara as transcribed by Familysearch.

We can confirm that John Curling married Mercy Longe at St Lawrence 17 Jan 1693/4 (Composite Register, page 357): The marriage was by licence (ex Canterbury Marriage Licences which indicates that John Curling was a mariner aged 22 (ie born about 1671) and his bride, Mercy, was 21 (born about 1672).  If John’s age is approximately correct then William cannot be his father as Cotton states. According to Cotton, William made his will in 1660 which was proved in 1662. William’s son John appears to have been baptised in 1658 which would make him 35 rather than 22 on marriage. Alternatively if his age is correct he would be born well after his putative father’s death.

Moreover we can rule out William Curling’s son John as the spouse of Mercy Long as he died as a child in 1665 and was buried at St Lawrence on 20 Nov. The Parish register (page 255) very clearly shows him as John son of William Curling. Familysearch has the burial of John on 20 Nov 1665, son of William (correct) but also as son of John (wrong).

There are two baptisms both at St Lawrence which fit the age on John Curling’s  marrrriage licence:

28 Dec 1671 son of John and Anne

15 Aug  1669 son of George and Anne

Now the plot thickens: there is a marriage of Ann Curling widow of William Curling late of St Lawrence to John Curling of St Peter in Thanet, maltster, widower at St Alphege in Canterbury 19 June 1662,  Robert Maxted of St Lawrence afsd bonds (ex Canterbury Marriage Licences).  The reference to Robert Maxted is significant.

Familysearch has the marriage but not the bride’s christian name. The transcript of the St Alphege parish register (page 80) also has the bride’s christian name missing. The parish registers from Canterbury Cathedral Archives as on Findmypast seem to have only the transcript and not the original parish register.

There appear to be three children from this marriage: Daniel 1663, Jane 1665 and John 1671. The baptism for John on 28 Dec 1671 fits exactly with the birth year of John Curling who married Mercy Long.

We have established that Ann Maxted married William Curling in 1651 and we know William died about 1660 so it is very likely that she was the Ann Curling, widow of William Curling, who married John Curling in 1661. Ann Maxted was baptised at St Lawrence in 1633 daughter of Robert Maxted and she had a brother Robert baptised in 1632.  It is likely that Robert Maxted who underwrote the marriage bond for her second marriage was either her father or her brother.

We know from the marriage licence of John Curling and Anne Curling that John was a widower so had been previously married so the next question is who was his previous wife.

There is a marriage of John Courlinge to Ann Gilberd at All Saints Birchington on 23 Aug 1656 (ex Joan Leary from the KFHS CD of Birchington marriages). Margaret Bolton writes: John Curling’s marriage to Ann Gilbert was recorded in the Birchington parish register as having taken place on 23rd August 1655. It would not have taken place in the church but at the residence of the local JP because this was the Commonwealth era and church marriage had been banned. The register has a list of local marriages which were appended unofficially.

Barbara Callcott has found the will of Richard Gilbert (1665) which refers to his loving sister Anne now the wife of the said John Curling, the date of the will is March 1665 almost three years after the marriage of John Curling to Ann Curling, widow so Ann Gilbert cannot have been the first wife of John Curling who married Ann Curling. There are other marriages to consider:

Ann Young 23 Jun 1645 at St Lawrence

Elizabeth Joad 12 Jun 1643 at St Lawrence

Jane Brett 18 Nov 1652 Birchington.

It seems that Cotton was fortuitously right stating that John’s mother was Anne Maxted but he was wrong in deducing John’s father was William and there is very little doubt that John Curling who married Mercy Long was son of John Curling of St Peter, Thanet, maltster, and Ann Maxted, widow of William Curling, and he was baptised on 28 Dec 1671 at St Lawrence. If this is true Cotton’s conclusions on the previous Curling line are wrong and the Curling ancestry is now an open question.