Do I have Dorset smugglers in my family tree?
 

I have been trying to trace my 4x-great-grandparents, Joseph Isaac and Frances Charles.

I have Joseph as being baptised in 1741 and Frances in 1743.

Name: Frances Charles
Event Type: Baptism
Event Date: 29 May 1743
Parish: Chickerell
Father's Name: Thomas Charles
Mother's name: Prudence Charles

Frances daughter of Thomas & Prudence CHARLES 29 May 1743
But the family also had links with Osmington. The last child, Prudence, was born there, and for the baptism of the first child it says "from Osmington".

Thomas seems to have had the alias of Hughes.

His baptism seems to be this one:
Name: Thomas Charles
Event Type: Baptism
Event Date: 22 Jan 1712
Parish: Osmington
Father's Name: Emmanuel Charles
Mother's name: Mary


I googled "Emmanuel Charles" and found this:

http://www.weymouth-dorset.co.uk/osmington.html

http://www.weymouth-dorset.co.uk/smuggling.html

My branch don't seem to be involved, but I shall have to find if the smuggling family descend from the older Emmanuel Charles.

I've found an on-line tree, which looks pretty thoroughly researched:

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com...s/PDFBOOK1.pdf

I can see a trip to Dorset coming on! Funnily enough, we were very nearby last summer.

I was only reading about Emmanuel Charles last week :)

My Bucks were from this area and those who were not mariners were mainly coastguards or revenue men, so if you turn out to be related to the dodgy part of the Charles family then we will be on opposite sides!!

Actually, there are some records suggesting that at least one of mine was involved in smuggling as well as working for the revenue, so maybe not so opposite after all! lol

I thought of you, Merry, when I was researching this, as I know you have been looking at a Dorset family.

My line seems to go:

Emmanuel/Manuel Charles alias Hughes and Mary Crimmell

then:
Their son Thomas, baptised 1712 at Osmington.
Referred to as Thomas Charles alias Hughes.

and his wife Prudence Hurden, whom he married in 1733 at Osmington.

Their daughter Frances Charles, baptised at Chickerell, but two of her siblings were baptised at Osmington.

Then she married Joseph Isaac at Affpuddle.

My branch then went off to Portsea.

I'm interested in the "alias Hughes" part mentioned many times in the PRs, both for Emmanuel and then for his children and grandchildren. I wonder why the alias lasted so long. At first I thought it might be the mother's surname, but it was soon clear that wasn't the case.

As far as I remember, I've never seen anything written about the Charles family online that mentions the name Hughes at all, so that's a mystery.

I wish we knew who shot Richard Charles in 1835. Not that I'd want it to be one of mine, but would be interesting to know.

The PRs are on Ancestry. The transcriptions don't mention the aliases but they are there:

http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/22...l=ReturnRecord

see third entry on the left-hand page.

Oooh yes! Pity the vicar didn't write something more helpful!

I found one baptism the other way about:

1736 Osmington

Bap: Mary daughter of Henry Hughes alias Charles (inserted "+ Eliz") of Ringsted Bapt Decr. 9th

Yes, that was the last one I found. On my tablet now, so don't have my tree with me. I'm about to tell my daughter all about it.

Ooh what a hoot Liza. I am quite sure that my Cornish ancestors must have done a bit of dabbling in smuggling too .. yet to prove it. They went on to be very strict Methodists, so would not have wanted that coming out lol. Julie