We have just added 8,368 new Dorset marriage records to findmypast.co.uk which cover the years 1560 to 1839.
We’ve done some digging around and have found some unusual names in our Dorset parish records collection.
We found a marriage between Martha Loaring and Samuel Single on 14 October 1750 in Bettiscombe, making Martha a married Single:
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The Dorset baptisms also offered some amusing names: here you can see a record for ‘Love Dear Bedloe’ who was baptised on 27 August 1745 in Dorchester:
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We also found a ‘Fruit Carter’ in the Dorset baptisms, who was baptised on 17 May 1807 in Chickerell:
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The Dorset burial records contain a slightly more sinister discovery: an ‘unknown’ person buried on 8 April 1815 in Abbotsbury. The notes state that the unknown person was ‘found on shore’:
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Search for your ancestors in our parish records - and maybe you’ll even make some weird and wonderful discoveries of your own.
The “found on shore” is not sinister! Alas, in the days of sail, many people were washed overboard in storms or fell off ships due to accidents at work. I imagine he was one of those. In fact, fishermen wore distinctive pattern sweaters (such as Jerseys, Guernseys, etc) so that if and when their bodies were found, relatives could be informed by using the sweater pattern to identify their home port.
I have just completed a survey of the headstones at our local churchyard and there are several ‘washed ashore’ and identified. The burial records have many unknowns listed too. At a coastal area this is not sinister, just a fact of life as Paul says above.
I agree with the two commentators above, I find it strange that your site should think it anything other than normal in a coastal area, to have an unknown body washed ashore. The accepted way to bury people at sea was to throw them over the side, so it is obvious that some of the bodies will wash up somewhere.
Your “bizarre finds” are just trying (and failing miserably), to sensationalise family history, come on, if you are a serious family history site, treat us and our ancestors, with a bit of respect.
Those who were buried at sea had the body weighed down with cannon shot attached to the canvas bag that they were sewn in, by the time the canvas rotted away the body had decomposed and the remains would remain where they were.
Men often fell from the rigging or were washed overboard in heavy seas.
To “bring in sail” or “go about” was a complex and highly coordinated maneuver requiring all hands, by the time all hands could be aloft and the sail brought in or the ship brought about and retrace, the poor seaman would be far aft and well out of sight.
Anyone who has been at sea in even moderate seas will know that within a few yards of the ship your chances of being seen and found are extremely small, in heavy seas it would be a miracle. In these conditions most of the sail was in anyhow with just enough to maintain steerage and keep your course, the prospect of going about to find a man overboard was simply not possible
If the poor soul was near land then he would be washed up on the beach at some point, not an unusual occurrence.
The occurence of being found ‘unknown’ was well known to sailors, who often had their left ear pierced to carry small golden earring. The earring was supposed tp contain sufficient gold to pay for a Christian burial. It often amuses me when I see people today with such earrings: are they afraid of dying without being given a Christian burial? Those with multi earrings must be terrified!
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