Update on the Rickmansworth Costers

In the past I had traced my part of the Coster family back to Benjamin Coster who had a son William in Sarratt in 1750. I had also found earlier christenings n the same parish for William and Martha and John and Elizabeth. This parish had not kept marriage records for 1732-3 to 1755 and I had assumed, and still assume, that Benjamin married in the parish.

After a long break I have been back to the Herts County Records office and found more details.

I found a marriage for

William Coster and Sarah Wright on 29 September 1736. This is recorded in the Herts online records as Mary Wright.

William Hoberry and Dorothy Coster on 4 October 1736. This is recorded in the Herts online records as William Boberry.

Nothing exciting so far.

I then found the marriage of William Costern of Rickmansworth (bricklayer) and Elizabeth Baldwin on 4 July 1709. This is also recorded in the Herts online records.

My thoughts were could they be parents of Benjamin, William and John?

This page in the register had christenings on the page before and after but they were in the 1720s. I thought that they might have missed some christening as well. I went back in the register until I notice a page that had some 1718 christenings in a box in the top right hand corner of the page and a note that these had been supplied from the St Albon’s Archidiaconal records and added in 1912. No Costers in those names. I then looked at the rest of the page and discovered what I had been looking for at the bottom of the page. William and Elizabeth had christened all of their children at the same time and the vicar had recorded their dates of birth. I was very excited to read the following.

William born 8 July 1710
Elizabeth born 16 February 1712
John born 25 March 1714
Thomas born 7 June 1716
Joseph born 8 August 1718
Benjamin born 30 November 1720
Five sons and daughter of William Costern and Elizabeth baptized together on 9 September 1721.

I had found Benjamin’s parents and his whole family!

I did have a look in Rickmansworth for William’s christening, I am assuming it is 1680-1690 but did not find him. I did find some Costard names in a group but the writing is very poor and so I cannot read it all. I can make out several names and dates. Thomas Costard 1684, Elizabeth Costard 1681, Mary Costard 1684. I need to view the original register to make sense of these.

I have several Coster groups in my findings that do not yet fit into the tree. I think that I might be able to find the links between the above details to those families in the near future.

My email address is now grahamcoster@btinternet.com

Graham