The various sections that follow represent a chronology of my researches in order of data acquisition. It explains how each set of information was gathered and interpreted and how the interpretation changed as each new piece of information became available.

The Dunham Massey Archives and Joseph of Dunham's will.

I became involved with the early family history after a visit to Dunham Massey House and to Bowdon Parish Church some years ago, when I was able to view Josiah of Dunham's gravestone. In discussion with the custodians at Dunham Massey House it was discovered that all the estate archives had been catalogued by researchers at Manchester University and it would be worth viewing these, as there could well be some mention of the Phethean family in the archives. I was fortunate enough to have a nephew studying for a PhD at Manchester so I was able to persuade him to investigate for me. His studies uncovered a numerous references to various Phethean surnames but only one possible mention of Josiah of Dunham - all other references were much later and it appeared that most references involved one Joseph Phethean, Farming Steward. The records of the House Stewards only started a year after Josiah of Dunham died so there was no mention of him in this section of the archives.

From evidence in the estate archives, it became clear that the Joseph Phethean, Farming Steward mentioned therein was the Joseph Phethean of Dunham (d1774), the "cousin of Josiah Phethean of Dunham Massey" as recorded by Florrie Phethean. It was also apparent from these records that Joseph had a brother Josiah who had connections at Enville in Staffordshire. This was of great interest since Enville Hall was the main family seat of the Grey family, the Earls of Stamford, who also held Dunham Massey estates at this time. There was also mention of Josiah Phethean of Breightmet (see Introduction) as an executor of the estates of Joseph of Dunham so there was an indication there of a family link.

To obtain additional information about Joseph of Dunham I was able to obtain a copy of Joseph's will and tuition orders from Cheshire Record Office. Appendix I contains a detailed abstract of Joseph of Dunham's will together with some comments on the interpretation of the data.

It is apparent from the information in his will that Joseph of Dunham had a brother Josiah, who pre-deceased Joseph. This Josiah held land at Enville in Staffordshire. There is no mention of a surviving wife for Joseph of Dunham at the time of writing of the will. There is mention of a sister Martha (now Martha Dunstar) and a Mary Phethean of Enville (d1776). Joseph of Dunham also had three living children at the time of the writing of his will: Josiah, Elizabeth and Henrietta. Josiah of Breightmet is mentioned in the will as the cousin of Joseph of Dunham, although I was inclined to treat this with caution at first since the terms nephew, cousin, second-cousin all seem to be synonymous at this time. If this was true then the interpretation by Florrie Phethean that Josiah of Dunham and Joseph of Dunham were cousins could not stand. Josiah of Breightmet was one of the executors of Joseph of Dunham's will and was subject to a Tuition Order signed by the executors of Joseph's will to "educate and bring up in learning" Josiah aged 8, Elizabeth aged 7 and Henrietta aged 6 years until such time as that they come of age or be married."

Florrie Phethean's original tree recorded a son Joseph d1786 as a brother to Josiah, Henrietta, Elizabeth. This is an error by Florrie as she would have assumed from the List of Wills at Chester that there was a Joseph who died 1786. (I was under that impression too, until I saw the copies). There is no mention in the will or the estate details of a Joseph Phethean and as detailed in Appendix I, the wills and other documents at Cheshire Record Office dated 1772 and 1786 are all part of the same administration of Joseph of Dunham's estate, amended when his son Josiah reached the age of 21 in 1786 and inherited Joseph of Dunham's estates. Josiah was granted rights to the leases etc held in trust on 23^rd March 1786 and the remaining executors (some had died) released their title to the estate. This is why Cheshire record Office has two dates in their List of Wills 1772 and 1786 referring to Joseph of Dunham - the later dated document is the final discharge of the original administration order.

Josiah Phethean of Breightmet, Innkeeper died intestate on 12th Feb 1791 and his wife Alice was granted an Administration Order for the residue of his estate (document provided by Lancashire Record Office). One of the witnesses to this document is Henrietta Phethean, daughter of the late Joseph of Dunham, so at this time she was still in the care of Josiah of Breightmet's family. Another signatory to the document is one Josiah Phethean, Gentleman of Manchester - it is not known at this time if this is Henrietta's brother or the Josiah Phethean son of Josiah of Breightmet as depicted in the original family tree.

From the evidence that was currently available, the family of Joseph of Dunham at the time of his death now appears as depicted in Figure 2 below:

Figure 2: The family of Joseph of Dunham to include evidence from his will and the estate records from the Dunham Massey archives.

Bowdon Parish records

Still intrigued by Josiah Phethean's status as the "first Phethean", I set about trying to establish if there was any further information regarding either him or his wife Martha and if we could find any earlier ancestors in Dunham Massey or Bowdon. The main sources of information for this period are either the parish records or the Bishops Transcripts (BTs). BTs are the annual returns or transcripts of the parish records that had to be sent to the diocese every year - in this case to the Diocese of Chester.

Both the parish records and BTs for Bowdon parish have been microfilmed and copies are available for research from the Church of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) Family History Centres. The original parish records have slightly more information than the BTs, but the BTs often survive when the original records have been lost or are of very poor quality. Some significant years are not recorded for Bowdon at all, one such gap being the years around the probable birth date of Josiah of Dunham c. 1671. Thus it was impossible to establish conclusively if Josiah was actually born in the parish.

From various films of the BTs I was able to come up with the following new information that is detailed below (Table 1) and includes the notes and comments that I made at the time of collecting this data. Note that some of the baptisms were described as "in house". Commonly this type of baptism took place if the child was not expected to survive.

Some of the burial records have a sworn affidavit attached, which is due to the fact that Acts of 1667 and 1678 required that burial shrouds had to made of wool (a subtle form of tax to promote the home wool industry!) and that this had to be certified before a burial could take place. These acts were not repealed until 1814 but I have only seen a few such

Table 1: Parish Records and BTs from St Mary's Parish Church, Bowdon

Significant points to be noted from the above data:

There are sons/daughters of a Josiah Phethean but early parish records hardly ever mention the wife's name on a baptismal record, so there is no hard evidence that these are the children of Josiah of Dunham and Martha.

Joseph of Dunham married Esther Poole by license. This was usually if (a) one of the parties was widowed or (b) as an expression of financial superiority - it cost a lot more to marry by license rather than by banns. Could it be that Joseph had married twice? Esther died before Joseph's will was written.

William Taylor, witness to Joseph of Dunham's marriage is mentioned in Joseph's will as his "brother-in-law". Who did he marry?

Joseph of Dunham and Esther had a much larger family than was originally thought, although only three children were surviving at the time of writing of Joseph's will. Esther and Nathaniel have very close baptismal dates and it is possible that these two children were twins and one was "baptized in house" since it was not expected to survive. In any case, by 1772 there is no record of either of these children surviving.

The family of Joseph of Dunham can now be depicted thus:

Figure 3: The family of Joseph of Dunham to include evidence from the parish records and BTs from St Mary's parish church, Bowdon.