The Vendyback family
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The Vendybacks of Medbourne
(Please note that the name is spelled various different ways in the record, including Vendyback, Vandyback, Vendy, Bendyback, Bendeback and Bendy.)
Abraham Bendeback married Ann Ashby on 25 October 1778 in Medbourne,
South Leicestershire, just near the Northamptonshire border. They had 5
children: Mary (bap 25 December 1778), William (bap 7 May 1786, bur 10 October 1794*)
Abraham (bap 15 March 1789), Susanna (bap 26 December 1790) and Catherina (bap 13 September 1795).
In 1799, Rachel, the illegitimate daughter of Ann Vandyback is baptised. Aside from a bequest
in his father-in-law Samuel Ashby's will, these are the only entries for
Abraham Bendeback in the historical record. It is not known where he came from or where he went.
Some descendants of Abraham Vendyback (I hope some day to put all of his descendants on here. I believe that all of the Vendybacks in England today descend from him.)
The Vandebecks of Thorney
Thorney is in Cambridgeshire, in the fenlands. It was owned by the Earls of Bedford and during
the 17th century, the 4th Earl began a project to drain the fenlands in the area. Many Walloon
and French Huguenot families settled in the area and it was these workers that were largely
responsible for the drainage of the fens. These people were immigrants and refugees; some had
come from the settlement at Sandtoft, the descendants of earlier immigrants and others came
from Flanders and France. The immigrants were allowed to have their own church and the French
Church at Thorney has left records from 1655-1727.
The Vandebeck family appears in the registers of the church from the 17th century. Various
members of the family also left wills and other mentions in the historical record and it is
possible to reconstruct a basic family tree of this family. All of the Vandebecks in the Thorney
registers appear to have descended from Bastien Vandebeck, who died in 1658, leaving property
to his children: Peter, Isaac, Susan, Abraham and Mary. Abraham is a name that appears a lot
throughout Bastien's descendants, but unfortunately the registers end around 1727, 20 or so
years before 'our' Abraham would have been born. It is likely that Abraham Vendyback of
Medbourne was connected to this family, but it is as yet unclear how.
Descendants of Bastien Vandebeck of Thorney
In the parish registers of Medbourne, there is a record of the burial of Abraham Vendyback,
son of Abraham and Ann on 10 October 1794. This entry puzzled us for a long while as we are descended
from Abraham- how could he have died at the age of 5? We thought that possibly the entry could have been
for an earlier child, who 'our' Abraham was named after. But this conclusion never felt satisfactory as there
was no other baptism of another child of Abraham and Ann called Abraham. However, the answer came in the Bishop's Transcripts. A parish priest was required every year to send a return of all baptisms, marriages and burials in the parish to the local Bishop. Some of these survive for the parish of Medbourne and the entry for 10 October 1794 says that 'William, son of Abraham and Ann Vandyback' was buried on this day. This makes more sense as we have no later records for William and a lot for Abraham. So it seems that the priest simply made a mistake in the original register and then corrected it in the transcript!