Paul Stainthorp

Im currently living and working in the city of Bristol in south west England. With a few notable exceptions , my paternal ancestors are all from the north east, so I was surprised to discover that a four-times great grandparent was born in my adopted city. My great-great-great-great grandfather Cornelius Sadler was baptised on Tuesday, 9 December 1... 794, at Holy Cross church in the parish of Temple, which lay in the part of Bristol south of the River Avon, in the historic county of Somerset . Corneliuss father was also called Cornelius (a Biblical name which became popular in England from the 16th century onwards, possibly through Dutch influence); his mother was Ann. 1 The ruins of Temple Church, Redcliffe, Bristol. The Leaning Tower of Bristol, its west tower has leaned 2.7 away from the vertical ever since its initial construction on soft clay in the 15th century. © Copyright Matt Gibson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence . Temple Church was reduced to a ruin by the Luftwaffe on the night of 24 November 1940, when it took a direct hit from an incendiary bomb during the Bristol Blitz . The parish registers stored within the church were damaged by fire and by the water used to quell the flames, and the church itself was left an empty shell which is now a Grade II* listed monument. While the original, damaged Temple parish registers ( held at Bristol Archives ) are not in a fit state for production, luckily the Diocese of Bristols transcripts of the records for the years including the baptism of my four-greats grandfather have been microfilmed. On 13 March 1815, one Cornelius Sadler married Mary Harper at All Saints Church, Newcastle upon Tyne. Cornelius and his bride are both described as of this parish (i.e. at the time of their marriage they both lived in the parish of Newcastle All Saints, which included the eastern part of the city of Newcastle as well as the township of Byker on the other side of the Ouseburn Valley). 2 Later records confirm that this is my Cornelius Sadler, born ...Read More