PrenticeNet :: Abraham Prentice of Sharnbrook, England and NZ

Abraham Prentice of Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, England and NZ
Summer 2001 and Revised 22 Apr 2008

Update of 8 Jun 2001: By email of 8 Jun 2001, a correspondent says that Abraham Prentice is her great-great-grandfather. She says she is reliably informed by her late grandfather's cousin that Abraham was an English Jew whose family had nothing more to do with him after he married a non-Jew. She has conflicting information as to Abraham's place of birth; She says that Abraham's Death Certificate says he was born in Kent but his Marriage Certificate says his birth place was Bedfordshire ( Mogerhangar).

She advises that Abraham's Death Certificate identifies Abraham's father as William John Prentice.

The reference to Mogerhanger seems strong evidence that Abraham is a descendant of John Prentice who was married in Willington and who lived in Cople. Both villages are only about 3 miles west of Mogerhanger (see map link, above).

Abraham Prentice, #6a in the above article, was b. c. 1831 in Blunham which lies only about 3 miles east, and slightly north, of Mogerhanger (see map link, above).

Although that 1831 date is earlier than the c. 1850 date in the article below, the latter date may be erroneous in view of the above similarities. Likewise, the 1831 Abraham's father is identified as John Prentice rather than William John Prentice, such difference is not necessarily significant in working with really old records.

Original Article: We are helping Kay Prentice and another correspondent in tracing the ancestry of their Abraham Prentice was is thought to have been born c. 1850 in Sharnbrooke, Bedfordshire, England.

He m. Mary Ann Cameron, as her 2nd husband, on 15 May 1873 in Timaru. She was a widowed mother when they married. Mary Ann's first husband was Duncan Cameron and they had (per correspondent , 17 Oct 2001):

Elizabeth Cameron.
Robert Cameron.
May Cameron.
Jane Cameron.
Emily Cameron.

Abraham and Mary Ann, both of whom had emigrated separately to New Zealand before their marriage, lived at Pleasant Point and had a family. Botha re buried at a correspondent's hometown, Palmerston North. There were 11 children, including:

William/Bill Prentice.
Frederick Prentice, b. 1879.
Esther Prentice.
Amelia Ethel Prentice.
Rebecca Prentice
Six other children who died very young.

Abraham may be related to John and William Prentice of Sharnbrook , discussed in our Winter 2000 Prentice Newsletter, but so far no specific link has been found.

Ian Prentice, our Prentice authority in England, advises that there is no record of an Abraham being born or married in the entire indexes of St. Catherine's House and nothing in the IGI. He suggests that prhaps Abraham was baptised and registered under a different forename with Abraham as a middle name and he decided, on maturity, that he would prefer to be called Abraham.

He also indicats that if this were the case, then one would have to approach the problem from the other direction by searching for Mary Ann Woolnough in the marriage index in the given time frame and then check under Prentice for the same reference number and see who comes up. If it's a different forename then Ian might be able to help.

If you have any information about the folks mentioned in this article, please contact us at dewald@prenticenet.com and please include the title and date of this article.


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