The Crisp family of Cambridgeshire

The Crisp family lived in the fenland villages of Little Downham, Isleham, and Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, during the mid to late 19th century onwards.

The Crisp family are not an ancestral family for me, so I am not actively researching them. However, this family is connected to me due to the brief first marriage of my 3x Great Grandmother, Mary Tingey to John Crisp in 1846 at Little Downham, Cambridgeshire, England.

In August 1846, a heavily pregnant Mary would have waddled down the aisle of St. Leonard's Church in her native Little Downham, and within about 6 weeks, the couple became parents to their son William Crisp.

He would be their only child, as John was dead within a year.

Mary re-married within three years to widower James Martin and the couple raised and buried 5 of their 6 children.

Crisp family move to Isleham and Soham

Having survived into adulthood, William takes the Crisp family to Isleham, Cambridgeshire, where he married Tabitha Large in 1869. The couple stay here for a little while, raising son John Crisp there in 1871, but by 1874 they've moved just a few miles away to the large village of Soham.

Here they stay for about five years, adding more children to their brood, until they return back to Tabitha's native Isleham, where they finally have their eighth child - Albert Alfred William Crisp in 1886.

Just a couple of weeks before Albert's baptism in March 1886, William died, aged just 39 years. This left Tabitha with 8 children to care for, and understandably she re-married the following year, this time to George Butcher.

William and Tabitha's children would go on to live in Soham - where James Crisp (or 'Jim Crisp' as he sometimes appears) would end up as the publican of The Travellers Rest public house, and son Isaac Crisp would go to work as a Miner up in Easington Colliery in County Durham, England.

Crisp family connections

The Crisp family are not an ancestral family for me, but they are connected to my Tingey family via marriage.