RIDER and SAUNDERS Genealogy

These branches connect to Claudia's  COMPTON and JEFFERY maternal lines.
The story of James JEFFERY and Jane RIDER and family is posted in our blog.
Alternate spellings: Ryder
The RIDER and SAUNDERS families lived on the Isle of Wight off the south coast of Hampshire, England.  This line is still tentative, although it is based on the best evidence currently available. In the early 1800s, some of their descendants emigrated to Prince Edward Island on Canada's Atlantic coast.

When I first learned about  my maternal 4-times-great grandmother from family sources, I entered her in my tree as Jane RYDER beside her husband James JEFFERY.  Her maiden name was spelled as RIDER in their 1783 marriage index, which took place in Newport on the Isle of Wight.  But I had no birth or baptism records for her.   Their daughter Hannah JEFFERY (my 3-times-great grandmother) was christened in Carisbrooke Isle of Wight in 1790 as the daughter of James and Jane JEFFERY, but unfortunately the record did not disclose her mother's maiden name.  While some of the Isle of Wight parish records are available online in one form or another, they are far from complete, and I had no luck finding Jane's birth in those records.  So that's as far as I got  for decades.

More recently, the name Saunders started to appear in various public trees online, sometimes as Jane's middle name, sometimes as her surname, but no one listed primary sources.    So looking again in the indexes, we found the baptism of a Jane SAUNDERS, daughter of James SAUNDERS and Hannah RIDER in 1761 in Godshill (near Newport) on the Isle of Wight.  Could this be my Jane?  Then I learned that there is a different version of this parish record, where she is referred to as Jane RYDER!  So was it mis-indexed?  What gives???

Thanks to Betty, my distant JEFFERY cousin who has actually traveled to the Isle of Wight and looked at a lot of records there, she reported that:
The only record of a baptism of a Jane Ryder around 1762 was one 20-Nov-1761 in Godshill, daughter of James Saunders and Hannah Ryder "a natural child".  My interpretation of "natural child" is that she was the illegitimate child of James and Hannah. While it is unusual to see the father's name listed in the case of illegitimate births it is not unheard of, and I have actually seen other baptismal records where he has been listed.  My suspicion is that someone at some point added "Saunders" to Jane's name to recognize that the father was a Saunders, but that she did not use that, and we will not find it in any primary record (or at least that's my suspicion). Assuming that this is the correct Jane Ryder, it would explain the origin of your ancestress' Hannah (Jeffery) Compton's Christian name.
So although I haven't seen the parish record myself, it would appear that Jane's illegitimacy required her to use her mother's maiden name of RIDER or RYDER, but her natural father was named James SAUNDERS.   I know nothing else about James Saunders or his line.

Here is Claudia's maternal pedigree leading back to this RIDER and SAUNDERS couple, then following the RIDER line back further: ​
These earliest generations are based on work done by other researchers, so it is still a work in progress.  Some of the other branches might be:

BOYES: Jane BOYES, daughter of David BOYES (1687-1720) and Ann HUNTIFORD (1687-1742)

CHESSELL:  Ann CHESSELL, daughter of William CHESSELL (1640-1682) and Ann _______ ( - 1711)
​
A RIDER Tree has not yet been posted.
I have posted the story of James JEFFERY and Jane RIDER and family in our blog.
​COMPTON Family Tree - Edward COMPTON & Isabell MILLS - 12 Generation Family Tree

​Also check out our blog for COMPTON-related stories.