There was no article in September 2002.

HEBBORN FAMILY HISTORY & NEWS - October 2002

A Steeple Barton Family.

For me, a bonus to being at The Hebborn Gathering in August was meeting Joan for a morning at the Oxfordshire Record Office.[ORO]. It was my first visit to the present building and I was glad Joan was there to show me around. Our research concentrated on the Hebborns/Ebborns of the Steeple Barton Area. I had already gathered a lot of references from the International Genealogical Index [IGI]. This is a wonderful starting place for research, but I was aware that all the records available at ORO are not included. Excellent indexed transcripts of the Steeple Barton registers are held at ORO, and I spent the whole morning poring over them, while Joan investigated neighbouring parishes.

One baptism entry stopped me in my tracks - "7th Feb 1836. Susannah Hepburn [H201] posthumous daughter of Charles Hepburn [G201] and Ann Hepburn. Middle Barton, labourer. W.G."  As time was limited, looking closer at this sad event had to wait until my return home. I found Susannah's father had been baptised at Steeple Barton on 14th March 1813 the son of John Hebborn [F203] and Sarah Hebborn formerly Newman. Sarah died at the age of fifty-two, when Charles was only nineteen.  By this time he had probably been out to work for about seven years. Charles Hepburn, bachelor of Steeple Barton married Ann Tompkins, spinster on 31st August 1835 at Steeple Barton. Three months later Charles aged only twenty-two years old was dead. He was buried at Steeple Barton on 23rd November 1835.

Life must have been tough for his widow and her baby. The early 1830's were years of social unrest and hunger for many of the poor. What became of the poor fatherless Susannah I do not know.  So far, I have failed to find a death or a marriage entry relating to her. She was fourteen and would probably have left home when her mother married for a second time. The records show that on the 16th May 1850 Ann Ebborn, of full age, widow, of Middle Barton, daughter of John Tompkins, gamekeeper married William Hicks a widower of Sandford St Martin at the parish church of Steeple Barton.

You will notice that in this short cycle of events the families were known as Hebborn, Hepburn and Ebborn. It seems that later generations from Steeple Barton settled for Ebborn. If any of you happen to read this, please get in touch.

John Hebborn.

The numbers in square brackets after names can be used to identify persons on Family Tree Charts and Databases. See Family Tree Chart D201.