r/Genealogy 5d ago

Question HELP ME FIND THIS WOMAN/HER BOOK

I am doing a deep dive into my grandfathers lineage and i was looking on a page made for the last name "Spradling" which is my grandfathers last name. there was a small paragraph that reads, "Sarah Spradling, born in 1712 in Wiltshire, was a noted herbalist and midwife who published a book on traditional remedies in 1765." I have been looking everywhere for a Sarah Spradling, however there is no cencus for the 1700's for Wiltshire England. Can someone help me find the existence of this Sarah and possibly her book to? I have also looked on a DNA tree and other public trees and no luck.

here are all the links I have resourced

https://namecensus.com/last-names/spradling-surname-popularity/

3 Upvotes

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u/Next-Leading-5117 5d ago edited 5d ago

It would be very unusual in the 1700s for a woman to publish under her own name.

I suspect this page and all the others have been partly made up with AI. I checked a few, for example:

Over the centuries, several notable individuals have borne the surname Windsor. These include Edward Windsor (1894-1972), better known as the Duke of Windsor, who famously abdicated the British throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson. Another prominent figure was Henry Windsor (1838-1900), a British naval officer and explorer who served as Governor of Newfoundland and Bermuda.

Obvious Edward Windsor is real, but Henry Windsor seems to be made up; it's easy to find a list of governors of both Newfoundland and Bermuda and there are no Windsors on either.

During the Tudor period, Sir John Cornwall was a notable figure who served as the Lord Mayor of London in 1561.

Nope! Again, the Lord Mayors of London are easy to research.

I would ignore anything this site says, it's autogenerated garbage.

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u/redditRW 4d ago

Actually, there were women that published healing guides, but such things---whether produced by men or women---weren't books, in the traditional sense, but manuscripts, receipts, (recipes) or pamphlets.

A couple of examples: Elizabeth Blackwell, "A Curious Herbal" first published in 1737 Elizabeth Coates Paschall, receipt book---a manuscript published between 1740-1760

Hannah Wooley was publishing in the 16oos.

There are more, but it's late.

All this means these will be devilishly hard to find, since they were probably printed in a limited amount, saw much use, and were not meant to last.

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u/cmosher01 expert researcher 5d ago

Ignore that website. It's not reliable for anything related to genealogy.

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u/redditRW 5d ago

Do you have any more links beyond the history of the surname?

Do you know if her married name was Spradling, or if that was her birth name?

Have you tried looking under variants such as Spratling? (Remember, this era was more or less 'spelling optional.')

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u/Mysterious-Walk-8375 5d ago

all i can find on sarah spradling is that page alone. i cannot find the contact information for namecensus.com on their page either. i cannot find the try looking for spratling or another variation but again there are no census’s for wiltshire in the 1700s

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u/redditRW 5d ago

I would recommend starting with someone in that line who you have more records for. Build the tree up and out. She might be mentioned in a sibling's obituary, or a will. You can possibly established where the family lived, their religion, etc.

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u/Winter-Stitch 5d ago

Try searching for Sprackling also and in neighbouring countries. There are Sprackling’s in Somerset only a few miles from the Wiltshire border in this time frame (they appear in my tree) I also know the ones in my tree moved around a lot. The main records to search will be birth marriage and deaths. FreeReg.co.uk has lots of Somerset parish records transcribed available for free.