The WINFREY Family Line of Lincolnshire, England

by Donald Leroy Winfrey  (Oct 2004)

In researching the WINFREY family name, family researcher, Robley E. Winfrey, broadened the scope with extensive searching in England, especially in Lincolnshire.  A search of England of the records of about 1550 to 1750 shows that WINFREY persons, with some 26 variant spellings, were then in England.  The spelling of “Winfrey” was quite common.  Extensive documentation was provided by the English genealogical research firms of Kinseek and Kintracers.

The conclusion of Kinseek and Kintracers was that the WINFREYs were definitely in Lincolnshire as far back as 1573, and mainly seemed to have lived in the parishes of Howell and Fleet.  They researched ninety-three listed sources for any reference to the surname WINFREY with little success until they turned to the county records of Lincolnshire.   Lincolnshire is one of forty English counties and one which was notable for the number of its inhabitants who emigrated to North America in the Seventeenth Century.

The main source of the information provided by the genealogy researchers was the Bishop’s Transcripts from the Lincolnshire parishes where WINFREYs lived in the seventeenth century.  This was the early period as regards parish registers, but since the State religion was the Church of England, the parish records were usually well kept on the marriage, birth, baptism and burial of each member.  However, “…in the registers of most parishes there is a gap of some kind (known familiarly as the ‘Commonwealth Gap’) during the period 1640-1660, in which many of the royalist clergy were ejected from their livings, or at least not permitted to perform ceremonies.  Marriages then were taken over by the Justices of the Peace, and other functions by registrars or government appointees, none of whom kept the registers as would the regular incumbents.”  (Kintracers Limited, Genealogists and Family Historians, Canterbury, Kent, England, Dec 1978.)   The surviving parish registers with WINFREY entries were:

                FLEET – parish lying about 2 miles southeast of Holbeach (1652)

                HOWELL –tiny parish lying 5 miles southeast of Sleaford (1710)

                GEDNEY – parish about 3 miles east of Holbeach (1553)

                KYME (South) – parish 8 ½ miles southwest of Tattershall (1647)

                GOSBERKIRK (probably GOSBERTON) – parish 6 miles northwest of Spalding (1659)

Occupations listed for the Lincolnshire WINFREYs include Husbandman [Farmer], Blacksmith, and Yeoman [A feudal term referring to a soldier holding his land, generally 60-120 acres, specifically in exchange for military service].  Of particular interest is the Bishop’s Transcript from Fleet Parish in which John Winfrey signs in 1626 as one of the Church Wardens.  A church warden is a lay member of the parish administrative council.  Usually a church warden had gained the respect of his co-parishioners thanks to his experience, his moral behavior, and his honesty.

When John Winfrey of Howell Parish, Lincolnshire was buried on 15 May 1638, he is listed as John, “libertus” or “freedman,” indicating that he died a free man.   When Sir Richard Winfrey, Lord Mayor of Peterborough, England visited the United States as an exchange Protestant layman in January 1926, he related the following story of how we probably received the surname, WINFREY.

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, an emigrant from one of the low countries of Europe settled there.  He was an artisan of some kind, a silversmith or locksmith perhaps, who had a low-country name which the English could not spell nor pronounce.  In the usual course of events, he would probably have been given the English name of Smith.  But shortly after his arrival in England, the annual tournament was held.  The tournament was a three-division affair, divided according to classes in keeping with medieval tradition, with separate competitions called the Joust for the knights, the Fray or Frey for the freeman.  He was persuaded to enter the Fray or Frey.  After winning, he became known as the man who won the Fray or “Winfrey.”

R. P. Winfrey, son of Sir Richard Winfrey, of Peterborough, England wrote in November 1956:  “We have evidence that our family have occupied land in the Long Sutton area of South Lincolnshire since 1670.  The family has always been, what we call in England, “dissenting,” i.e. has declined to conform to the statutory religion of the Anglican Church.  It therefore follows that there are no entries in any of the Church registers of christening and burials because, being Dissenters, they did not come within the aegis of the Church England.  Records were not kept by any other denomination.  We have no knowledge of any member of the family emigrating to America, but it could easily have happened because substantial numbers of people went from South Lincolnshire, where the town of Boston is located, and here the Dissenters were particularly strong in numbers and subjected to a great deal of persecution.  This, as you know, drove them to emigrate to the New World.”

Although I have not yet been able to connect the Sir Richard Winfrey family of South Lincolnshire to the Lincolnshire documents provided by Kinseek and Kintracers, I have been able to construct a substantial WINFREY Family Tree from their documentation beginning with JOHN WINFREY of Howell Parish, Lincolnshire who was married to Agnes with whom he had five sons.  He died in 1573.  The reoccurring family names are: 

John (15), Thomas (7), William (4), Charles (3), Robert (3), Stephen (2), Henry, Anthony, Fabian and Simon.  It is interesting to note the commonality of names with the earliest WINFREYs in Virginia.