Brief biography and children. English census reports say that Richard Beach born in the village of Ditton Priors in Shropshire, England. The available records generally indicate a birthdate around 1825-1826. The baptism record that looks like the right one indicates an out-of-wedlock birth to Anne Bache in 1826, with no mention of paternity. An Anne Bache was buried in Ditton Priors the month after the baptism. English death records in this time period don't show birthdates or family members, so we can't be sure who this Anne Bache was.  If she was Richard's mother, then he was orphaned at a very young age, and was probably raised by family members in Ditton Priors. Although Richard's lineage can't be proved, it's most likely that he is the grandson of John Bache and Hannah Wall of Ditton Priors. They had a daughter Anne born in 1791 whose subsequent history is unknown.

Richard and his wife Catherine had eight children (one daughter and seven sons), all born in England. Richard, Catherine and their three youngest sons immigrated to the US in 1881; a fourth son immigrated separately, and we have no information on what happened to the other four children. We don't have a death record for Richard and his wife; the last known record of them is the 1900 census in Rutland, Meigs County, Ohio.  

The spelling of the name varies between Beach, Bache, Bach and occasionally Beech in both Britain and the US, which continued until about 1920. This makes me wonder how they pronounced the name. It looks like Richard and his wife were illiterate (they signed their marriage record with an X), so it may have been up to the recordkeepers to decide how to spell it.

The children. Richard Beach married Catherine Davies on September 10, 1849 in Diddlebury, a village close to Ditton Priors. Their children are:

• Ann - born about 1852, location not specified. The last record of her is the 1861 census for Dawley, Shropshire when she was 9 years old.
  
  
• George - born 5/4/1854 in Bickley, Knighton on Teme, Worcestershire, England. Immigrated to the US in 1880 according to the 1930 census. Died 2/12/1944 in Canton, Ohio.
  
  
• John - born about 1855, location not specified. The last record of him is the 1861 census for Dawley, Shropshire when he was 5 years old.
  
  
• Edwin - born 1858 in Tenbury, Worcestershire, England (aka Tenbury Wells). The last record of him is the 1881 census for Cwmtillery, Monmouthshire, Wales when he was 23 years old.
  
  
• James - born 1860 in Tenbury, Worcestershire, England (aka Tenbury Wells). The last record of him is the 1881 census for Cwmtillery, Monmouthshire, Wales when he was 20 years old.
  
  
• Jesse - born May 1863 in Madeley, Shropshire, England. Immigrated to the US in 1881 with his parents. Died 9/15/1934 in Rutland, Meigs County, Ohio.
  
  
• Alfred- born 5/14/1866 in Madeley, Shropshire, England. Immigrated to the US in 1881 with his parents. Died 6/6/1957 in Alliance, Ohio.
  
  
• Thomas- born 8/28/1871 in Madeley, Shropshire, England. Immigrated to the US in 1881 with his parents. Died 5/27/1960 in Wheeling, West Virginia.
  
  

Geography and records

Map showing locations associated with Richard Beach in the Shropshire/Worcestershire area. The records show him in several different towns, but he actually remained within about 10 miles of his birthplace until the family moved to Wales.	The family's location in Wales relative to their previous locations in Shropshire/Worcestershire. This was a much bigger move.  We can't tell how long they were in Wales; apparently for at least several months, but not for more than 10 years. They emigrated to America in the same year as the Wales census.	A map showing Bache Brook and Bache Mill in relation to Diddlebury and Tugford (the village where John Bache and Hannah Wall married), from British History Online

	1826 Baptism record for Richard Bache on June 4, 1826. Mother is Anne Bache and no father is listed, apparently indicating that he was born out of wedlock.  Children were usually baptized shortly after birth.  Long delays were possible, but the baptism date is often a good approximation of the birthdate. The baptism was in Holdgate, about two miles from Ditton Priors. It's possible that Richard was actually born in Holdgate, but was raised in Ditton Priors and thought it was his birthplace. It's not unusual for unwed mothers to be estranged from their family, and it's possible that his mother was in Holdgate to be close to his unidentified father. William Bache (son of John and Hannah, and Richard's possible uncle) married in Holdgate in 1829 and continued to live there at least into the 1840s; if he was already there in 1826, his sister Anne might have joined him. No one else from Ditton Priors is known to have lived there.  The original image is not available online. There is a Richard Bach (son of Francis and Elizabeth Bach) who was baptized in Culmington, Shropshire on 1/16/1824. His subsequent activities are well documented and he is not the right person.  There's no record of anyone else with a similar name being baptized in Shropshire during the relevant timeframe.
	1841 Burial of Anne Bache in Ditton Priors on 7/10/1826, five weeks after the baptism. The original image is not available online. There isn't enough information to determine whether this is Richard's mother, but there's no record of a different Anne Bache in Ditton Priors at this time.
	1841 England census for Monkhopton, Shropshire, which is in the right general area. Richard Beach (birth year about 1826), agricultural laborer, not listed as a member of anyone's household. This is probably our Richard.  There were only two known Richards of the right age in Shropshire at this time, and the other one is on on the 1841 census with his parents. If our Richard was an illegitimate child then he may not have had a lot of family support, particularly if his mother had died.
	1849 (September 10) Marriage record for Richard Bache and Catherine Davies in Diddlebury, Shropshire. Richard, Catherine and one of the witnesses signed the record with an X. The other witness, John Bache, was apparently literate enough to write his own name - the "J" is distinctly different from the other J's on the page. There is a box for father's name which is mostly blank, probably signifying an out of wedlock birth with no legal father.  It does contain a squiggle that looks like the J in John Bache's signature. Maybe John started to sign in the wrong place before realizing his mistake. Or maybe it's some kind of abbreviation that means "illegitimate" or "not applicable". There were several John Baches in the area and it's not clear which one this is. Notice that Richard and Catherine were witnesses to the marriage of Catherine's sister Emma in the entry above their own marriage record.
	1851 England census for Knighton on Teme, Worcestershire (Tenbury registration district) Richard Bache (birth year about 1825), born in Ditton Priors, married, servant in the household of Mary Reynolds, who was also born in Ditton Priors. This looks like our Richard; subsequent documents say that several of his children were born in Tenbury.
	1858 (May 2) Baptism record for John Bach and Edwin Bach in Kempsey, Worcestershire Both boys were baptized on the same day even though they were born a couple of years apart. Richard and Catherine apparently had no sense of urgency when it came to baptism. Everything is consistent with the right family except that the location is about 15 miles away from where we'd expect.  It's reported elsewhere that John and Edwin were born in Tenbury, Worcestershire.
	1860 (July) Baptism record for James Beach in Norton-Juxta-Kempsey, Worcestershire Everything is consistent with the right family except that the location is about 15 miles away from where we'd expect.  It's reported elsewhere that James was born in Tenbury, Worcestershire.
	1861 England census for Dawley, Shropshire Richard Bache, laborer (age 32), Catherine Bache (age 32), children Ann (age 9), George (age 7), John (age 5), Edwin (age 3), James (age 10 months)
	1871 England census for Madeley, Shropshire Richard Beech, farm laborer born in Priors Ditton (age 46), Catherine Beech born in Leebotwood (age 46), children George, collier (age 18) born in Bickley Worcestershire, Edwin, ag laborer (age 16) born in Tenbury Worcestershire, James, scholar (age 11) born in Tenbury Worcestershire, Jesse, scholar (age 8) born in Madeley Aqueduct Shropshire, Alfred, scholar (age 5) born in Madeley Aqueduct Shropshire
	There is no record of the family in Coalbrookdale, but the family oral history says that they lived there before they emigrated.  It is close to other places where they were recorded.
	1880 Family portrait taken in Brynmawr, Monmouthshire, Wales near Cwmtillery. Children left to right are Alfred, Jesse, Thomas, Edwin and James.  George is not present and may have already emigrated to America.
	1881 Wales census for Cwmtillery, Abertillery, Monmouthshire (taken on April 3) Richard Beach, coal miner born in Ditton (age 50), Catherine Beach born in Leebotwood (age 54), children Edwin, coal miner (age 23) born in Aqueduct (Madeley) (this is incorrect), James, coal miner (age 20) born in Aqueduct (Madeley) (this is incorrect), Jesse, coal miner (age 16) born in Aqueduct (Madeley), Alfred, coal miner (age 14) born in Aqueduct (Madeley), Thomas, scholar (age 9) born in Aqueduct (Madeley). The ages on this census are generally inconsistent with the previous records. The Welsh Coal Mines website has an article about the Cwmtillery Colliery with pictures. It looks dreadful.  Dormitory-style worker housing is visible on the hillside close to heavy equipment for the mine operation. This might be where Richard and his family lived. The mine shut down in 1982. The 1881 census says that the family lived on West Bank road, which still exists. The modern satellite view (click here) shows that the miner housing on this road has apparently been replaced by modern townhouses. The old industrial buildings may have been replaced by a sports field, and the satellite view shows a purple historical marker for the mine.  There was a landslide in November 2024 caused by heavy rains washing out an old coal tip (which is a pile of waste material). This image from Wales Online shows that it was on the east side of the village, on the other side of the valley from West Bank road.
	1881 passenger list for the ship Lake Nepigon, departing from Liverpool and arriving in New York City on 12/23/1881. Richard Beach (age 51), Caroline Beach (age 50) (first name is erroneous), children Jesse (age 17), Alfred (age 15), Thomas (age 10). Son George emigrated separately, reportedly in 1880, but the record has not been found.
	1900 US census for Rutland, Meigs County, Ohio Richard Bache, farmer (age 76), Catherine Bache (age 72), son Thomas, no occupation listed (age 28) and his wife. Other children were reported on the 1900 census as follows: George as a coal miner in Jackson, Ohio; Jesse as a farmer in Rutland, Meigs County, Ohio; Alfred as a coal miner in Nevins, Vigo County, Indiana The 1890 US census was destroyed in a fire, so we don't know where anyone was that year.

Possible ancestors. We have no documentation for Richard's ancestors other than his mother Anne, so we have to look at the Bache family history in the general area for clues about his lineage.

Bache history. Ditton Priors (Richard's birthplace) and Diddlebury (the village where he married) are close to a village called Bache Mill.  It's not clear when the mill was built or how it got its name, but a stream called Bache Brook runs through it. The stream has had this name since at least 1660 according to British History Online.  We don't know whether the stream was named after the family or if the family was named after the stream, but it certainly suggests that the family has been in the area for a long time. There are records of the Bache family in Ditton Priors going back to the 1600s. They may have been there even longer than this, and there are Baches in the other villages in the area.

Since Richard is a native of Ditton Priors, we need to figure out who was living in Ditton Priors at the time of his birth in order to find his ancestors. Baptism records are the most effective tool for piecing together family relationships, since they give the names of both parents and the child (although they don't give the mother's maiden name).  Most marriage and death records do not show birthdates or names of family members, so it's harder to use them to identify people.

Analysis of the Ditton Priors baptism records show two family lines: the descendants of William and Jean Bache, who started baptizing children in 1671; and the descendants of Francis and Susanna Bache, who started baptizing children in 1682. William and Francis were probably related.  Many of the children have no other records than the baptism; they may have died or moved elsewhere.  The last known Ditton Priors baptism in William's line was in 1760, long before Richard Beach's birth, so Richard is unlikely to descend from this line. Additionally, Francis and Susanna had a son named Richard, and this name continues to recur in their line but does not occur in the William and Jean line. We can reasonably conclude that Richard Beach descends from the Francis line. Click here for a pdf showing the lines of descent (reconstructed primarily from baptism records). The chart has a common ancestor called Unknown Bache at the top; this is a technique that lets me show the William and Francis lines in the same document. It does not imply that they were brothers, although they might have been.

After 1800, the children of John Bache and Hannah Wall were almost the only Bache children being baptized in Ditton Priors. John's cousin Michael baptized two children there in 1807 and 1808, but the boy died young and the girl moved away. John and Hannah's children were born in Ditton Priors between 1789 and 1810, but most of them went elsewhere to start their families. The exception was John and Hannah's son Jesse, who married in Ditton Priors in 1831 and had four children there between 1831 and 1838. He was still living in Ditton Priors on the 1861 census, but left sometime before 1871.

The Jesse-Edwin connection. Circumstantial evidence suggests that Richard Beach may have had a close relationship with this Jesse Bache. Richard claimed Ditton Priors as his 1826 birthplace, even though he was baptized in Holdgate. It was customary to name one's children after close family members.  Most of Richard's children had names that could be found in almost any English family, but two were distinctive: Jesse and Edwin. This is a strong clue about Richard's family connections. Only three boys named Jesse Bache were ever recorded in Shropshire. The first was born in 1753, and although he apparently lived in Ditton Priors until his death in 1846, he was more distantly related, had no known children, and was so much older that Richard probably didn't have much to do with him.  The second Jesse was John and Hannah's son, and probably Richard's uncle. The third one hadn't been born yet at the time Richard named his son Jesse in 1863.

The name Edwin is also distinctive.  The first Edwin Bache ever recorded in Shropshire was the son of Jesse Bache and the grandson of John and Hannah. If Richard was the son of Jesse's sister Anne, then Edwin would have been his first cousin. This Edwin was born in 1837 and died two months later.  Richard was about 11 at the time, and if he was on the scene it may have made a big impression on him. The next Edwin Bache was baptized in 1857 in Munslow to parents Arthur and Eliza Bache, who have no visible connection to the Ditton Priors line. The third known Edwin Bache was Richard's son, baptized in Worcestershire in 1858.

Richard also has a son named Alfred, which is fairly distinctive. But this name doesn't correlate with any of the Bache lines, and may relate to the family of Richard's wife.

Richard's mother Anne Bache. I did a search for baptisms of Anne Bache or Beach in Shropshire (not just Ditton Priors) between 1780 and 1815 to look for potential birth mothers. There weren't as many as I expected, and all of them were born by 1801 so Richard's mother apparently was not a teenager when he was born in 1826. The most obvious candidate was Anne Bache the daughter of John and Hannah Bache, born in 1791, sister of Jesse Bache who remained in Ditton Priors and of William Bache who moved to Holdgate where Richard was baptized. She's the best answer for reasons that have already been outlined: her parents and siblings had a stronger connection to Ditton Priors than anyone else, plus the recurrence of distinctive family names in Richard's children.

I found another apparent illegitimate birth where a John Bache was baptized in Ditton Priors in March 1826, with a mother named Anne Bache and no father (FamilySearch). Richard's baptism was three months later in June 1826.  Is this the same Anne Bache with another illegitimate child, or someone else?  She obviously didn't have two successful births three months apart, but she could have had two children and delayed getting the first one baptized. This child's subsequent history is unknown.

It's possible that the mother on this record is a different Anne.  There was an Anne Bache born in Ditton Priors in 1790 to Frances Bache, apparently out of wedlock (FamilySearch). It's not clear who these people are. There's no documentation showing a connection between Frances and the Ditton Priors Baches. The only baptism record found for a Frances Bache was in Clee St Margaret, Shropshire in 1766 (FamilySearch).   There's no information on what became of Frances and her daughter after the baptism, and no connection with the names Jesse or Edwin. It's questionable whether they'd still be hanging around in Ditton Priors 36 years after Anne's birth.

There was an Anne Bache who married Richard Francis in Ditton Priors in 1836, but she was born in Wales in 1821 so it definitely wasn't her.

The remaining Annes have no visible connection to Ditton Priors. The most promising one is an Anne Bache born in Monkhopton in 1791 to Matthew and Mary Bache (FamilySearch). Monkhopton is in the right general area, and Richard was recorded there on the 1841 census.  Matthew and Mary Bache moved to Madeley shortly after Ann's birth and had several children there. Richard was in Madeley on the 1871 census, and his three youngest children were born there. But there's no visible relationship between Matthew Bache and the Ditton Priors families, and no known motivation for this Anne to come back to Monkhopton/Ditton Priors when she was old enough to make babies. The family moved when she was too young to remember it.

Another Anne was born in Madeley in 1800 to parents John and Elizabeth Bache (FamilySearch). Apparently no one has figured out who this John Bache's parents were, so we can't say whether he's related to the Ditton Priors family.

The others are even less promising.  The 1841 census shows an Anne Bache who says she was born in Bridgnorth in 1801; her baptism record has not been found.  An Anne Bache was born out of wedlock to mother Sarah in Ryton, Shifnal in 1800, but that's pretty far afield. 

DNA evidence. I have little DNA evidence for this line, since the distant cousins are mostly still in England where testing rates are much lower.  The evidence that I do have points to a relationship between the descendants of Richard Beach and the descendants of John Bache and Hannah Wall of Ditton Priors. The most likely explanation is that John and Hannah are Richard's grandparents, although other relationships are possible and the common ancestor could be further back than this.

There is a tantalizing DNA match where the only recognizable shared surname is Wall, but there isn't an identifiable connection to Ditton Priors. If Richard is the grandson of Hannah Wall, that's an obvious explanation for it. It's also possible that Richard has Wall paternity. The records show that there were several adult Wall males in Ditton Priors around the time that Richard was born. Robert and Elizabeth Wall baptized a daughter in Ditton Priors in 1824; so did Richard and Catherine Wall; and so did William and Sarah Wall. I'm not going to spend much time researching the Wall family until I see stronger evidence of a connection; but I will be paying attention.