Offley Family - Ourfolk

Jonathan Kirton

Stephen Kirton, who heads your chart, was born at Christchurch, Hants.,
in about 1501. This information comes from his own will, which I have
had transcribed. He married his wife, Mrs. Margaret Nicholls (nee Offley)
in Staffordshire in 1521. By about 1527 he was living in
Edmonton,
Middlesex, but later lived in Limestreet Ward of the City
of London, and
was a Freeman and an Alderman of that City. He was a
Merchant of
the Staple at Calais, and was a very wealthy man. In 1552
he purchased
the Manor of Thorp Mandeville, Northamptonshire but never
actually lived
there himself.

He died in London on the 16 Aug., 1553,
and was buried
at St. Andrew Undershaft Church on 19 Aug., 1553.
Thomas Kirton, second son of Stephen and Margaret, above,
was born at
Edmonton, Middlesex in 1537. (There had been an earlier
Thomas, born
at Hillfarrance, Somerset; a twin, born in 1523, but this
earlier Thomas
had died in childhood.) He lived in London, and held
the legal post of
'Common Serjeant of the City of London.' His elder
brother John never
married. Thomas married Mary Sadler, daughter of John
Sadler also of
Edmonton, who was also an alderman of the City of
London. Thomas
inherited the Manor of Thorp Mandeville, Northants., and
died there on
20 April, 1601, and was buried in the Parish Church there
the next day,
the 21 April, 1601. There is a superb memorial to him
and his family,
carved in relief, showing him facing his wife, with his
sons behind him,
and his daughters lined up behind his wife, those sons and
daughters
which had survived to adulthood; three sons and five daughters,
although thay had had a total of 6 sons and 6 daughters
during their
marriage. Mary, his wife, had predeceased Thomas in 1597,
when she
was aged 60.

You next show their daughter MARY KIRTON, as having been
born in
Epping, Essex in 1566. Can you please provide me with
some proof of
that statement ? I have the baptism / birth dates of
Mary's three surviving
brothers: William, bapt. 1576; Edward bapt. 1577; and
Stephen (2) born
in 1580, and Mary was certainly the eldest daughter, but
1566 does
seem to be a bit early ? This would mean that she
would have been
aged about 36 years old when she married Robert Raynesford,
which
you say occurred in 1602. My guess would be that she
married at a
younger age. She certainly died on 15 April, 1629.
One of my reasons for writing is that if you do have
proof of a Mary
Kirton baptized in Essex in 1566, she may be a different
Mary Kirton,
and that would be of very great interest to me, because
I am hot on
the trail of a Kirton family living in Essex at about
that time, namely
the descendants of William Kirton, the elder brother of
the Stephen(1)
Kirton mentionedabove !