Can we join the Kingsclere Line and the Swallowfield-Heckfield-Worplesdon Tree?


For a long time the progenitor of the Swallowfield-Heckfield-Worplesdon Tree had been recorded as Martin Lovelock. We only knew of him, and his wife Anne, through the baptism entries in the Swallowfield Register for their daughter Elizabeth and son Martin, who were baptised in 1696 and 1699 respectively.

Then in June 2013 Helen Norton proposed that Martin (senior) was the son of Thomas and Joane Lovelock, baptised at St Mary, Fawley, Berkshire on 9 August 1674. Helen’s argument was based on the coincidence of dates and on the comparative scarcity of the forename Martin amongst Lovelocks, although it occurs a number of times in the Swallowfield-Heckfield-Worplesdon Tree.

This proposal was taken forward, making Thomas and Joane the pro tem progenitors of the Swallowfield-Heckfield-Worplesdon Tree. Furthermore, noting that the baptisms of Thomas and Joane’s children at Fawley begin with Mary on 21 May 1669, possible dates for Thomas and Joane’s marriage and for the birth of Thomas of 1668 and 1645 respectively were also put forward by Helen.

Nigel Gerdes and John Lewis then observed that a Thomas Lovelock, the son of James (and presumably Ellenor, although she was not named in the Register entry) was baptised on 7 January 1646 at Kingsclere. They suggest that James and Ellenor’s son might very well be the man whose children were baptised at Fawley, and that the Swallowfield-Heckfield-Worplesdon Tree can thus be considered as a branch of the Kingsclere Line.

The proposal would be confirmed if evidence was unearthed to show that Thomas at Fawley was at some time in his life ‘of Kingsclere’, and that Martin at Swallowfield was at some time in his life ‘of Fawley’. Does that evidence exist?