by Rosemary Bailey

Firstly I must thank everyone who has sent me details of their research, particularly Margaret MacDonald of Canada and Pauline Saul.

I have received a lot of material so it will be some time before I manage to work through it all. If you haven't sent me your research can I make a plea for my preferred format - it is easier for me if you send the raw data, for example transcriptions of parish records, copies of births, deaths and marriages etc., as well as complete trees. In this way I can draw up the trees myself and then verify them with yours. Also, please send any details of Sauls which are not related to your family since they almost certainly belong to someone.

Glenda Manwaring of Kingston, Queensland, has sent in a great deal of material on Cumbrian and Australian Sauls including entries from the births, marriages and deaths for NSW, Queensland, S. Australia, Victoria and W. Australia c.1842-1906. She has also passed on a substantial list of Saul and Sewell researchers.

I have started working on the Midland Sauls and have nearly finished charting Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Most of these Sauls probably originated in the Banbury area and spread up through Northampton and Warwickshire, with many arriving in Birmingham in time for the Industrial Revolution. The first Saul in the parish records is Joanne Saul who was buried in Horley (a parish to the northwest of Banbury) in 1541. Richard Saul, a farmer, who was buried in Horley in 1573 was probably the ancestor of the Horley Sauls; his descendants were still 'yeomen' in the mid 18th century. In this parish the name variants Sall, Saule, Saul, Sawle and Salle were given in the baptismal entries between 1573 and 1588 for the same family.

There were Salles in nearby Banbury in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and then neither Sauls nor Salles until the first Saul family cropped up in the 1720's, probably immigrants from Horley moving to the nearby market town. (Here I mean the family Salle, plural, not Salles.) One of the early Banbury Salles was John, a glover, whose will was proved in 1621 with an estate of £32.2.6d.

It should be noted that the Society is not concerned with the name Salle unless it is clearly a spelling variant of Saul.

By way of light relief while working on the Midland Sauls I had a look at some admirable research done by John Slaughter into the Sauls of North Norfolk. His Saul ancestor, John (died before 1681), had land in that area which he left to his son John (died 1713-16). The Manorial Court of Mundesley records that on 14 September 1716 'it was found that John Saul, late tenant of the manor had died before the court had seized the land and by will he left his land to his wife Elizabeth and thereafter to his children'. His children and their spouses were also listed in the Court Book. There are entries in the manorial records relating to this land right up to 1804.

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