The

Dudley Causton

Index of Causton & Variants

DUDLEY ROBERTSON GWYN CAUSTON

(1908-1969)

Foreword

This contains the information from a slip index created by Dudley Robertson Gwyn Causton (1908 - 1969). For over forty years he collected information on his own Suffolk family. He also collected information on individuals with the Causton surname and variants and families connected to Causton by marriage. From this information he created a hand written card or slip index. The index was given by his widow to the Society of Genealogists. To preserve the information in the card index and make it more accesible it has been transcribed and is presented in this bound volume. In each table a row corresponds to a card. The index comprises about 4,900 cards, each 8 x 12 cm. The original box of slips is kept in the store at the Society of Genealogists in London.

His one name study includes a range of spellings including Cason, Caston, Causon, Cawston, Costen, Costin and Coston. Although these are all known variations of Causton not all of people included in the index are necessarily Causton related. Other lines includes families connected to Caustons by marriage, mainly in Suffolk. The geographical coverage of the card index is mainly restricted to the English counties of Essex, Kent, Lincolnshire, London, Middlesex, Norfolk, Surrey and Suffolk. The county most represented is Suffolk for which baptisms, burials and marriages are probably nearly complete. The coverage of other counties is only partial. Chapman codes have been used to abbreviate the county names.

The slips are often heavily abbreviated. The abbreviations of which I am fairly certain are given on page 5 but there are many others on the slips where I could not be certain what Dudley Causton meant. Even some of the references are obscure. When in doubt I would suggest asking the staff in the Suffolk Record Office or the Society of Genealogists.

No attempt has been made to check or correct the data - it has been reproduced as on the original cards. As this volume is a transcript of the card index, which itself contains information gleaned from other indexes it is unfortunately likely to contain errors. In addition some of the information on the cards is not easy to understand and his handwriting is not always easy to read. Dudley Causton had seen the original and knew what he meant! Luckily the reference or source is usually given so the information can be checked.

The slips have been left in the sections created by Dudley Causton although he was not entirely consistent in classifying information. The Arms, Pedigrees, Visitations etc. section in particular is a miscellany of many sources of information. The index was probably still being created when he died which may explain the short run of deaths from the General Register Office Index.

A specialised database known as Custodian II was used where the categories of the slips matched those in the database. The information entered into Custodian is also in the master index at the end. The index includes Baptisms, Burials, Manorial Records, Marriages, Marriage Licences, Monumental Inscriptions, Taxes & Polls and Wills sorted first by surname, then forename and then by year. Other sections have been word processed and are not in the index. There are many references to his own notebooks quoted as capital roman numeral e.g. in the "sources" section. At the time of writing about twelve of Dudley Causton's notebooks that are referred to in the slips are missing. Only references to notebooks II, III, IX, VI and XVI can be looked up on the microfilm which is in the Society of Genealogists in London. The ten notebooks that are known have been renumbered on the microfilm as follows:

Transcribing completed September 2000

Abbreviations

Add - additional

Adm - admitted

Afsd - aforesaid

Ag lab - agricultural labourer

Bach - bachelor

Bb - base born

Botp - both of this parish

Bn - bondsman

B - born

Bp - bishop

BSC - born same county

Calr - calendar

Cat - catalogue

CBY - calculated birth year

Con, cond - conditional

Cont - containing

Cta - cum test admon

D - died

D, dau. - daughter

Dsp - decessit sine prole, died without issue.

Empd - employed

Exr - executor

• Exx - executrix

Gns - guineas

Gdau - grand daughter

Gson - grand son

H - head

Harl Soc - Harlean Society

IJRI - Ipswich Journal Redstone Index

Ind - independent (means)

Itm - item

Jun - junior

Kt - knight

Lab, labe - labourer

Lodg - lodger

LHHW - Mr Whitehead's initials

M - married

Mo, Mos - months

Med - middle (son)

Messe - messuage

MS - manuscript

Occ - occupation

Ors - others

Otp - of this parish

Pat - patent

Pt - part

Ptd - printed

S - son

Sd - said

Sen - senior

Serv - servant

Sp - spinster

Tents - tenements

U - unmarried

Vis - visitor

W - wife

W and wid - widow

Wdr - widower

Witn: - witnesses

WI - Wills at Ipswich (books I to XXX)

X - signs with a cross

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