The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.3 | December 2021

Member’s article

Horlock alias Gearle – An ‘Old Fashioned’ Search A few weeks ago, I filled in the 2021 census online and I wondered if this census would be as useful to my descendants as the old census has been to I was able to continue tracing the family in Nether Wallop, Hampshire although the surname was often written as GEARLE and sometimes GIRL . I guess that when William moved north, the Oxfordshire clerics wrote down the name they heard. All was well until I

me in researching my family history. On researching my mother’s family line, I found that George Henry CURRILL had married Mary Ann GURL in 1881 in Headington Quarry, Oxford. The Gurls were an independent, spirited family who feature as stone diggers in a book “Village Life and Labour” in a chapter called “Quarry Roughs”. So, you can guess the character of these ancestors of mine! In particular, the chapter noted that policemen did not go alone into Headington Quarry village! It was easy to trace the family in Oxfordshire back to a William GIRL who married Roseanna MORRIS in 1805 but then I hit a brick wall – where did William Gurl/Girl come from? Fortunately, census records came to my rescue. In 1841 he was listed ‘Not Born Same County’ but in 1851 it said that he was born in Headington, Oxford. I assume that the 1851 census form was filled in by the head of the household (James FAGG ) whom he was working for and who probably did not actually ask William about his birthplace. It took me a long time to find William in the 1861 census but eventually I managed to decipher the microfilm and with the aid of a magnifying glass (this was in the 1980’s!) found him in the Workhouse where he was listed as being born in Lower Wallop, Hampshire – a eureka moment! His death certificate showed that he died in 1862, aged 82, so I was delighted that he managed to live long enough to be included in the census.

hit another brick wall. The top of my Gurl/Girl/Gearle tree was now Isaac HORLOCK alias GEARLE who married Sarah LINTON in 1740 in Nether Wallop. I then discovered that the Nether Wallop burial register 1678 to 1775 is missing presumed lost, which was a big blow. At that time, the Hampshire Record Office was in an old church in Winchester, and I searched two hefty cardboard boxes for the register without any success. The archivist agreed that the register was not in their possession – in the past somebody had not returned it. Although in many ways it is easier today to find ancestors at the ‘click of a button’, there are definite advantages to searching the actual registers because it is easier to find siblings and you can see what is not there. In addition to the missing burial register, I found that there was a gap in the baptism register from late 1743 until May 1745. So, my Gurl/Girl/Gearle chart stayed in this state for a several years whilst I turned my attention to other branches of my family tree. I was eventually spurred into action by some descendants of William Gurl, in particular Hilda Girl of New Zealand and David Gurl of Wales who have been a great help with the subsequent research. The question was why ‘Horlock alias Gearle’? Was Isaac illegitimate or had his mother married multiple times or was there some other reason for the name? Although he

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