AN INTRODUCTION OF THE PLEDGER NAME AND THEIR ORIGINS

The earliest mention of the Pledger name was in Bottisham Cambridgeshire and is recorded in the Domesday book of 1066 With all the research I have been doing on the Pledger name over the last three years since I took on Peter Pledgers research, I now have over 6000 individuals of whom I have been working on finding connections to their roots. Peter had worked on around 50 pedigree tree’s of which I have managed to merge together a great number.

I am left with as I see it with five separate main pedigree lines of Pledger tree’s in Britain which I cannot find any connection between them as yet, but as most of the districts are close in distance it is possible they could have migrated from one village to another before there were any church records to record their births. These five pedigree lines are named by the earliest birth dates/marriage found in each district. This leaves me with many small pedigree lines of which are halted by a missing birth year or missing parents. Also there are still a great number of people who are in limbo, as I have no information other than their birth year.

I personally would like to make a dedication to Peter who connects the Suffolk Pledger’s as he saw the perseverance, patients and passion I had in researching my own ancestral tree, so much so that on the news that he was terminally ill and had a short time to live he entrusted me by asking if I would take over his work of researching the Pledger name, of which he had been doing for around 30 yrs. I was overwhelmed that he should ask this of me, so how could I refuse this wish of a dying man.His widow Joan told me it was such a weight of his mind for his work to be carried on. He died peacefully a few weeks later. I am certain he would be proud of what I have achieved over the last 3 years since his death.

I am willing to help other people who connect the Pledger name with their research if it is possible. This I do as a hobby and do not charge for my time. If soever anyone request a personalised A3 printed tree with the Pledger crest included I charge a small fee to cover my costs. This will be posted directly after receiving the amount agreed. The tree will include the direct line of the family back as far as researched to present day individuals.

THE ASHDON PLEDGER’S

The oldest Pedigree of Pledgers I have researched are from Ashdon in Essex, which is four miles east of Saffron Walden. There are about 700 individuals connecting this pedigree line dating back to around the late 1400s with Thomas Pledger and his wife Joan Higham and their family. They were the parents of John, William, Thomas, Richard and Joane Pledger.

It is known that their son Thomas was born in Horseheath, Cambridgeshire in 1530. Later he became "Sir Thomas Pledger" of Bottisham, Cambridgeshire. He married his wife Margaret Alington (widow) in 1564 in Withersfield on the Suffolk /Cambridgeshire border.

Margaret’s first marriage was to Robert Alington, she had eleven children with Robert. The Alingtons of this pedigree line have been researched back to Edward I, whose daughter was Joan of Arc.

This pedigree line of the Pledgers originates from Robert Pledger and his wife Francis Pettit, but as Robert Pledger is said to have been born in the year 1678 with no place of birth it is difficult to place him and his descendants with the Ashdon Pedigree tree!

I query this could possibly be the wrong Robert as his wife Frances Pettit was 32 years his junior.

They married in Little Bardfield Church in 1736, making his wife 26 and Robert 58 at the time. Their first son Robert junior was born in Haverhill, Suffolk in 1739, with the other ten being born in Stoke by Clare, Suffolk. The youngest Thomas was born just a year prior to his father's death in 1756.

Robert and Frances to date (2005) have 1700 descendants, with most of them residing in the Suffolk villages of Cavendish, Stoke by Clare, Hundon and Keddington. Some moved into Cambridgeshire to Fordham, Ely and Cambridge, then moved on as far as Walthamstow and West Ham and into London. One family came to settle in Littlebury (where my pedigree resided), this was the family of Daniel b.1752 the youngest child of Robert and Frances Pledger. Daniel married Margaret Long, their four eldest children were born in Suffolk and the two youngest Daniel and Charles were born here in Saffron Walden. They both became carpenters in Saffron Walden. Arthur worked for Lord Braybrooke on the Audley End estate. The two elder boys James and Thomas moved on to Walthamstow where their families spread into the London counties.

This pedigree line is where I connect with the Pledgers, being christened Megan Patricia Ann Pledger on 29 October 1948 in Saffron Walden, Essex. These Pledgers originated in Thaxted, Essex, which is seven miles south of Saffron Walden. I have to date (2005) over 4000 individuals connecting this pedigree tree. These I can date back to probably around the early 1500s, but as there are no church records prior to the mid-1500s it is difficult to date exactly. The earliest Pledger marriage in Thaxted was with John Pledger marrying Alice Wragg on the 6 October 1544. It is possible these individuals may have migrated from the nearby villages of Ashdon via the Sampfords then onto Thaxted, Essex, but there is no way of knowing, which makes it impossible to connect the two pedigrees of Ashdon and Thaxted as one tree!

The Pledgers of Thaxted must have been prosperous families as they left wills dating back as far as the year and 1545 these are of great help in finding their families. In my case this certainly became very helpful, as I could not find the birth/baptism of my ancestor Abraham Pledger, although I had his marriage to Mary Munchal in 1623 at Thaxted. This meant I could not trace my ancestors back any further than Abraham, until I obtained a will of John Pledger (1578-1657). In his will he named his youngest brother Abraham’s children as his beneficiaries, this then enabled me to trace his parents to John Pledger and his wife Elizabeth Digbie.

Prouds Farmhouse is about a mile from Thaxted in the hollow of the road that goes to Saffron Walden. It was built before 1500 and although altered and slightly enlarged at different times the pleasant lines of the original house have been spared to this day.

During the time of the Pledger’s residence there, the ceilings and fireplaces were added. At one end of the house there was the old wool room which is now partitioned off from the staircase. In former times the bales of wool were lowered through the well of the staircase into the yard below, as was the custom in all wool merchant houses. It was Abraham’s youngest son George Pledger (my pedigree line) who migrated to Littlebury in Essex.  He was the first Pledger to have married in Littlebury, in 1667 to Ann Green. In total there have been 112 Pledger births in Littlebury that descended from this couple, from 1668 to 1942. There are many descendants on the female lines from these Pledgers who were also baptised and married at the church.

Two of George and Ann’s children migrated into the surrounding villages of Little Chesterford and Wendens Ambo, with William (my ancestor) staying in Littlebury where he and his wife Rose had nine children, all were baptized in the village. It was with the next generation that several of the children had moved in different directions around the country, the main reason for this was most of the girls went into service as soon as they were old enough, the men spread their wings as far as Yorkshire to try and better themselves by finding work elsewhere. Some came back to their birthplace but others married and stayed in the village or town of their place of work.

John the eighth child of William and Rose Pledger married his wife Ann Abraham in Strethall, Essex in 1795. They had nine children all of whom were baptised in Strethall Church. John and Ann Pledger lived in “Ryders Cottage” in Strethall, where he worked as the gamekeeper at Strethall Hall. This Cottage was the residence of the Pledger family for around 200 yrs and the occupation of gamekeeper passed down from father to son for several generations, the last being my great grandfather William Pledger who lived at Ryders farm until his death in 1919. His youngest son Benjamin Pledger, a shepherd who died in 1969, was the last with the Pledger name to be in the village, but not the last of the pedigree line as the son of William’s daughter Annie Marie, Frederick John Rickard, lived in the village all of his life and died there in Strethall in 1997.

I have to date (2005) over 1000 individuals descending from this pedigree tree. They originated from the Essex village of Little Baddow with the births of Thomas and Joan Pledger’s children around the mid-1500s. Thomas married a second time to Emmer Lee.Thomas and died in Witham, Essex in 1601. He left a Will naming his wife Emmer and also his five children from his first marriage to Joan. They were John, Jerome, Thomas, Augustine and Mary Neavel his daughter, wife of John Neavel. His sons also left wills after their deaths, which helps us genealogists with our research. These wills prove there were Pledger families living in the Essex villages of Dunmow, Braintree, Witham, Maldon and Great and Little Baddow.

Some of these Pledgers were farmers and very prosperous. Joseph Pledger yeoman of Little Baddow was one such farmer. His farm was in Little Baddow and is still there today. There are large tombstones of some of the family in the graveyard, which is situated near the farm. Many of this family migrated to America in 1795. We know this is so as there is a copy of a sampler with their family tree on it. It states their name and that of the village they resided in.

                                                    
THE SUSSEX PLEDGER

The earliest mention of the Pledger name in Sussex is Thomas Pledger, yeoman in 1562, in the Sussex volume of Manors volumes 19-20. Also two brothers Giles and John Pledger of Buriton, which is on the Sussex /Hampshire border, both left wills after their deaths in 1570. I have 375 individual births for the Sussex Pledgers but am still working on this line.