Thread: Pleasance of Soham, Burwell and other places

Dear List

My great grandmother was Lucy Pleasance (born in Soham in 1872) and she went into service in a house on St Saviour's Road just off of Brixton Hill in South London. The family that she came from were Cambridgeshire folk for the several generations that I have record of at present, based around Cambridge and the Isle of Ely. The towns and villages encountered are Burwell, Soham, Isleham, Stow cum Quy, Great Wilbraham and also Barnwell in the parish of St Andrew the Less in Cambridge.

This was a fairly large family and were linked by marriage to many others, but my line directly links to Munns, Ames, Reed and Abbot. Recently I was working on what seemed to be a promising line of approach on the Ames family which has thrown up problems that I shall raise in another posting.

1. Lucy Pleasance (1872-1956) b. Soham, m. Timothy Orchard in Brixton 1895
2. Thomas Pleasance (1839-1929), b. Soham, m Phoebe Munns (1838-1885) in Soham
3. William Pleasance (1793-1868), b. Barnwell, m Elizabeth Ames (1791-1868) in Soham
4. Thomas Pleasance (1754-1792), b Burwell, m (2nd) Sarah Reed of Fordham in Fordham

Thomas died between the conception and the birth of his son William. I have no record of any other children. He married Sarah Reed in August 1791 in Fordham but had been married previously to Alice Halls whom he had married in April 1781 in Burwell. There may have been children of this first marriage, but I have not found them. I have no idea why the move to Cambridge or what hsi work was.

Thomas (#2 in the list, was a cordwainer and at one point had been elected a town councillor in Soham). For many years the family lived around the Soham Mere, close to Hunt's Mill.

I have some pictures of some of the later people and of later homes, including that which was nearer to the Down Field windmill, of which I have photgraphs from the period between the wars.

There was a small Soham community in Bartley Street and later on Brixton Hill in the censuses of 1891, 1901 and 1911. These were members of the Taylor and Norman families of Iselham and Soham, they are linked to my Pleasances through the marriage of Phoebe Munns' half-sister Mary Martha to James Taylor of Isleham. They were a focal point for newcomers from the countryside to the big smoke; I would like to investigate these people more thoroughly since they are important to my own history.

I would be happy to share any information and very happy to receive any,

Regards
John

My apologies for my mistake. I will answer any P.M. with the agreement of the admin of Ancestry Aid should they be
forthcoming

Wak,
Not to worry,
No apology is needed. We just wanted to be sure that the person named was not living.
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