Of twenty-one Wigwood/Weygood/Waygood events (1712 to 1815) on the current Devon IGI a far from complete overall record of baptisms and marriages) all but three are included in the updated original or the accompanying family tree, the remainder appear in Appendix C, with indications of likely connection. There is no evidence of a continuation of the male line in Devon; the births of only sixteen Waygood &c. children were registered in that County between 1837 and 1940, their fathers were born elsewhere; the only Waygood in the 1990 Devon and Cornwall telephone directory was the widow of a husband born in Wellington, Somerset. No personal searches of Devon records have been made.
It is unlikely that proof of links between the early Somerset/Dorset Wigods &c. will be forthcoming, but close church connections, the concentration of the great majority in the Yeovil/Ilchester/Langport/Crewkerne areas, and the repeated use of particular Christian names over the centuries (e.g. Richard, John, Thomas) leave little doubt of their existence.
There may well have been a father/son relationship between Richard, parson at Eastham Chapel, Crewkerne, 1311/3, and Thomas and John, rectors of Wootton Fitzpaine and East Coker; the living of Wootton Fitzpaine was in the gift of the Fitz Payns, whose Somerset estate at Charlton Mackrell and Cary Fitzpaine were within a few miles of Crewkerne and East Coker.
Clerical calling and identical surnames suggest that curate Thomas was the son of John, parson/rector at Curry Rivel and Limington. The 1584 burial of Martin Wigood, and the use by the curate of the alias Martin at his ordination as deacon (the only discovered occasions when the name appears prior to 1895) may detract from this theory, but equally would indicate Somerset parentage. On the meagre information available (ages unknown) Martin, Richard (Wigood/Wygwood/ Whygood) and Julian (Wigwood/Wygood), all buried Crewkerne, could have been brothers or sons of John, or of other relationship.
Barwick, home of Wiggotts from around 1566, has common boundaries with East Coker and Yeovil, and is separated from Preston Plucknett only by the latter; Crewkerne, Drayton, Curry Rivel, Limington, Ilchester and South Petherton are all within 12 miles. Geography and shared Christian names (in early parts of family tree and Appendix C) suggest connections, although speculation is the only option.
The 1568 and 1575 baptisms at Drayton (only a mile from Curry Rivel where John was parson from 1566), in names which duplicate those of curate Thomas and his wife, support the probabilities of (a) a father/son relationship between the two clerics, and (b) Thomas having fathered the children. Thomas's Devon ordination in 1574 may confuse, without being contradictory; as for the child Thomas see earlier comments on possible identity with the London cook and connection with Margaret married at Hartley Wintney.
Andrew Wigwood's sojourn in Salisbury, 1605/27, and his Langford Budville links, are covered in Addendum to Section 1 of the family tree.
The Curry Rivel scene of Jane/Jone Weagood's "misdeeds" of 1607 and 16t2 suggests a link with rector John, probably her grandfather (Curry Rivel registers available from 1653 only, baptism and burial of her daughter traced in Bishop's transcripts). Elizabeth, the 1656 South Petherton grave-robbery witness, is also likely to be connected by birth or marriage (no trace of Waygoods &c. in South Petherton records).
John Wigwood (1614 Salisbury-1661 Langford Budville) was, without doubt, the paid canvasser in the 1646 Ilchester election; Ilchester records date from 1690 only.
From the shared use of no fewer than seven Christian names by 17th-century Waggets &c. of North Wootton and the Wigwoods &c. of Langford Budville, it seems that there was a close relationship.
John Wegood, on the 1640 list of tenants of the Strangways family's Dewlish manor, is confidently presumed to have been the son of curate Thomas. Wegood occurs in association with Wigwood at Salisbury in the 1620e, and Weagood at Curry Rivel in 1607 and Langford Budville in 1675. If, as is more than likely, the curate vas a son of rector John, it would in those times have been appropriate, if not almost obligatory, to confer that name upon a son; other potential children of the curate are discussed later, no other John is amongst them. Adherence to family names is illustrated in the case of John of Dewlish, in the naming of a grandson who in turn honoured his grandfather, apparent great-grandfather Thomas, and cousin James. The relatively uncommon Edith appears at Curry Rivel, and was used for the Dewlish John's granddaughter, suggesting a link with Jane/Jone, probably John's sister. An explanation of John's presence in Dewlish might be a probable earlier association with the Strangways, who also owned the manors of Melbury Sampford, Dorset (close to the Somerset boundary) and Hardington Mandeville, Middle and West Chinnock (between Yeovil and Crewkerne); in 1640/1 his son William was with him at Dewlish, the other son, Emanuel, was at Maiden Newton, another Strangways manor.
Following John to Dorset were William Wigwood/Weygood c 1686 Langford Budville, who arrived in Beaminster in the early 1700s, and a grandson of his brother Robert, namely William c 1740 Langford Budville, who married in Beaminster in 1763 and died in Swansea. The male line of the earlier William apparently ended with the death in 1879 of Richard c 1806 Beaminster, although no trace has been found of the former's grandson, Thomas c 1737. The later William's only child, Joseph, married in Swansea and fathered six children including four males, one of whom died in infancy, another had seven children of whom five, including all of the males, failed to survive for a year; no later trace has been found of the other two, and the possibilities are that they died without issue before 1837 or left the U.K. An illegitimate grandson of Joseph adopted his father's surname. It seems, therefore, that all existing Waygoods by birth with Dorset connections have descended from John Wegood of Dewlish. The burial of Charles and Mary Weagood in Langford Budville in 1675 may indicate that Charles was a son of the curate; no record found of children.
To summarize, actual or likely relationships with curate Thomas are:
father - John, rector Curry Rivel and Limington,
brothers - Richard, Martin and Julian, Crewkerne; Aymos and George, Barwick,
children - Alice and Thomas, Drayton- Elizabeth (Dyer), Amersham; Andrew, Salisbury; Jane/Jone, Curry Rivel; Robert, North Wootton; John, Dewlish; Charles, Langford Budville.
It will be seen in later notes that the inventory of the curate's goods included four beds.