© 2016 David E. Spencer
Introduction
The study of the Troods represented a change in scenery from my more normal haunts of the record offices and libraries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The discovery that one of my wife's ancestors was the result of a mid - nineteenth century marriage of a Devon-born man to a lady from Durham aroused my curiosity - such a marriage would have been unlikely to say the least before the advent of the railways. The man's name was Thomas Trood and in the 1871 Census of Batley in Yorkshire he gave his birthplace as Broadclyst in Devon. "Trood" was a new surname to me and it turns out to be relatively uncommon even in the West Country from where it originates. By chance I had a CD copy of the 1851 census transcription of three counties including Devon produced some years earlier by the Church of Latter Day Saints. This contained details of Thomas and his parents living in the village of Stoke Canon, in Devon and near Broadclyst.
For me this was the start of an exercise in "long distance genealogy". Searching the IGI by means of the Latter Day Saints' excellent "familysearch.org" website gave me some more information about the Trood family then a search through the invaluable "a2a.com" website of our British "Access to "Archives" indicated that there were wills and other documents relating to the Trood family were located at the Devon Record Office in Exeter. The only way to investigate the Trood family further was to make use of a researcher working on our behalf at Exeter (for a fee Devon Record Office staff will carry out research for you) or to go in person to Exeter and visit both the Devon Record Office and the locations in and around Broadclyst. We decided on the latter course of action and booked a three night stay at the Travelodge at the Exeter junction of the M5. This hotel is ideally placed for research at the Devon Record Office - it can be reached on foot or there is more than adequate parking at the Record Office.
It appears that the wills proved by the Church of England in the area had been brought together in Exeter early in the 20th century and had then become a casualty of the World war II blitz. Copies of wills where death duties were involved had been sent to the Inland Revenue in London and these had survived the war. Copies of these copies are now available to view at Exeter. We also looked at marriage bonds that have survived from marriages by licence and at apprenticeship indentures of the Overseer of the Poor for the villages of Broadclyst and Huxham in Devon. We were also able to view copies of the relevant Parish Registers. From these documents we pieced together the history of the Trood family from the eighteenth century on.
To read the story of the Trood family click on the link.