Nycholas Gibbs - born 1560

Just after I started looking at family history, an English woman living in Spain with her husband contacted me. She had taken up family history because she wasn’t working and had focused on the Gibbs family in Norfolk.  I suspect that this family, for a variety of reasons, is relatively easy to trace because if you search for Nycholas Gibbs born 1560, there are many mentions of him in lots of people’s research. 

I kept the information she provided on the basis that one day I might be able to investigate it myself.  I haven’t yet!  But I thought I might still include the story of Nycholas Gibbs, who was (probably) an early-ish ancestor. I’m not going to write “probably” any more, but you get the idea!!  All of the events below individually took place, and a connection is assumed but cannot be totally confirmed.  The last Gibbs in our family was Martha Gibbs, who married Thomas Osborne.  I like the connection to Gibbs of Norfolk because of May Gibbs, the Australian writer and painter, who was also from Norfolk: I can only assume (hope!) there was some sort of connection.

This story occurred in various parts of Norfolk!  I’ve included place names where I’ve actually got them (I really should have kept all of the information!). 

Nycholas Gibbs was the son of Margaret and Rowlland Gibbs.  Their eight known children were:

·  Johes, a son (born 1550)

·  Johanne (1552)

·  Richard (1555)

·  Margaret (1559)

·  our Nick, baptised ‘Nycholas’ (1560)

·  John (baptised on 21 Aug 1561 in Catfield)

·  William (baptised in Catfield on 24 January 1562, in the old calendar, so really 1563).  

William died on 17 April 1564 when he was one.

·  Grace (born 26 December 1570 in Norwich)

There was a large gap between William and Grace, potentially the family moved to another location for a short time, and there were other children!

We don’t know where Nycholas spent his youth, but obviously some was in Catfield and then Norwich!  There is some discussion about whether Nycholas married a woman named Agnes Bonnell when he was 19.  In my view, the dates don’t work, so this marriage must have been a different Nicholas/Nycholas (part of the problem of just having church records and no other context!).

The next thing we know about “our” Nycholas was his marriage to Johanne Deye in Saint Benedicts, Norwich, Norfolk on Saturday 15 July 1589 when he was 29.

Nicholas and Johanne had at least three children, but given the dates, I suspect there were other children born to the couple in the eight years from their marriage until 1597.  Three known children were all baptised in Yarmouth:  

• Elizabeth born in 1597;  
• Robert born in 1598; and 
•  Nicholas born in 1600.

So Nick lived until he was at least 40, but after that we don’t know!  His date of death is unknown…

One day I might have time to research this branch of the family properly!

[Relationship to SNR = Probably G-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g great grandfather]