"Booth" Was Not John Wilkes Real Last Name?

[L Verge]

Steve_ The papers that I referred to above appear to have been photocopied from books at the Newberry Library in Chicago. The correspondent wrote in 1985 that the Newberry had several good genealogies. One was entitled Report of the Booth Association by Columbus Smith, 1868, which used British records from 1771 and 1825. There are several others listed in a group and range from Dictionary of English and Welsh surnames to Genealogy of the Booth Family in England (and principally history of County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster).

This gentleman notes that the spelling of the name includes: Both, de Bothe, Bothe, Bouthe, Boothe, Boothes, and Booth. It also appears in the Hundred Rolls of 1273 in the form of De la Boothe. The derivations depend on the locale, but the general meaning of the word refers to a temporary building or shed (as in outhouse?? -- just had to throw that in...).

He says that his line first appeared in England in the southern portion of the County of Palatine of Lancaster, where a son of Adam de Boothe, William de Boothes, was living in 1275. That area appears to be north of Liverpool, in the western portion near the Irish Sea.

I still have not found anything to tie this in with John Booth, the silversmith, who married Elizabeth Wilkes at St. George's Chapel, Hyde Park Corner, London on February 15, 1747. They had six children, and their son, Richard, was John Wilkes Booth's grandfather. Apparently the family moved shortly thereafter because the children's baptismal records are recorded at St. John the Baptist Church in Clerkenwell, London.

BTW: John and Elizabeth became quite wealthy, both in money and real property. London descendants of John and Elizabeth in the 20th century owned lots of land in and around St. John's Square in London. Elizabeth was the last of the pair to die (1801), and she left bequests to eight poor widows of the parish and to a school for orphans run by a Lady Juntington. She also remembered a faithful servant, who was then living with son Richard. Subsequent codicils included gifts to Richard's daughter, Jane, and his son, Algernon Sidney Booth, who died in 1803 at the age of five; nieces and nephews on both sides; as well as her son named Wilkes.

To be continued?...