The parents of Stephen Bennet (1691-1757)

Question

Stephen Bennet (1691-1757) was an early industrialist in Sweden. He came from England, where he had owned wool weaving mills, and ended up in Hälsingland, Sweden where he ran a high-quality linen weaving mill.

At the time when he died, the church book has long obituaries for more or less all deceased. Directeuren for Flors Fabrique is no exception. The name Bennet, and his father's name, Thomas Bennet, have not been problems for the Swedish vicar. His second wife, who followed him to Sweden, was Irish and named Catharin Raili (presumably the Swedish interpretation of Reilly).

What makes this into a question is the name of Stephen's mother, Maria. Everybody seems to have read her surname as Hoart - but I cannot get it out of my head that it says Stoart (=Stuart or Stewart).

If you'd like to help there are pictures attached to Stephen's profile: the obit and a comparison pic of snippets of H-es and St-s by the same hand.

Answer 1

I'm not an expert, but the other capital S-es don't have that extra line that the H-es have, so I would perhaps guess she could have been named Heart.

Comments

It's definitely a "måndagsexemplar". I think the extra crossbar is sort of dislodged from the t. The other capital H-es all have a crossbar that connects neatly to both sides.

Thanks for looking.

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I think Maria’s suggestion of Heart is worth a closer look. I have not managed to find any Hoarts in Leicestershire around that time, but there are Hearts.

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As you can see, Maria, I'm not an expert either. Just trying ;-)

Answer 2

He was baptised at Rearsby. Record image does not give mother’s maiden name. However, that location might help you to pin down a marriage record for Thomas and Mary to get another view of her name.

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbprs%2fleics%2fbap%2f00350343

Comments

Forgot to mention that the record was in Latin and gave her name as Mariam, so we are probably looking for a Mary.

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Wow, thank you!!

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I changed birth location from Präsby to Räsby (the way the Swedish vicar spelled it) in the text of the bio and put Rearsby into the location field.

He's not a cousin of mine - if anything some distant cousins of mine may have worked for him or his son.

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There's a 1687 marriage between Thomas Bennett [sic] and Maria in Rearsby and a Thomas born to them before Stephen. I would have said they were overwhelmingly likey to be Stephen's parents except for one unfortunate detail ... Maria's surname is given as Neale.

I did consider the possibility of Maria being a widow but didn't find any evidence.

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Not surprised at the Bennett spelling - as far as I understand that is how the family name is pronounced in Sweden today (emphasis on last syllable).

One thing that got me interested in this was the interpretation of English names by a Swedish 18th-century vicar. But getting Hoart out of Neale seems a bit much.

In the parish of Skinnskatteberg, where I am exploring the records and families quite thoroughly I see a lot of misremembered last names for parents, particularly mothers, in the obituaries of people who died in their seventies or eighties. But, of course, I must not assume such a misremembering here.

I didn't have any time at all for Stephen yesterday; may be able to provide him with one or two children today.

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We should also consider the possibility that Mary might have had a previous marriage to a Mr. Neale.

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Matthew didn't find any evidence for that. Might, of course, have been the case anyway.

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Thomas might be the same Thomas who'd previously had some kids with a Frances Booth.

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But I am also a bit wary, since I am on unfamiliar ground and there seems to be more than one Thomas Bennett in the area about the same time.

I'm only looking at them on FamilySearch - not going to pay for access to FindMyPast when I'm already subscribing to the two major paysites for Swedish sources.

So. I'm very grateful for the help I'm getting - and if one of you needs anything from Swedish sources I'll gladly help you.

I gave Stephen a daughter today, born in England with his first wife.

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How kind of you to give him a daughter Eva! :-D

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They'll maybe get a son today.