[ Nicholas Toadvine | News | Various topics | Elijah Toadvine branch | Channel Islands Connection | Tostevin Data ]
Once Nicholas arrived in Somerset Co, MD he married and raised a few children. The search for Toadvines and also people who aren't aware they are descendants of Nicholas is an ongoing process, aided by the fact that there's only one source for the Toadvine name, that I know of. If anyone knows differently, then please let me know. Here's a descendant chart for Nicholas Toadvine showing the names and dates I have on the first five generations.
David Pedgley has written a second article on the Tostevins of Guernsey: 'A new look at the early Tostevins in Guernsey', published in November 2001 in the Transactions of the Societe Guernseiaise, vol. 24, pages 944-953.
More to add...
A large branch of the Toadvine family tree consists of the descendants of Elijah Toadvine. His children are the heads of branches of the Toadvine tree that people who were born early in the 20th century and lived in the Salisbury, MD area knew very well.
The charts here are PDF files. Check out my PDF tips.
Henry Thomas Toadvine was a son of Elijah Toadvine. Here's a paragraph about him:
Henry T. toadvine was a prominent farmer of White Haven. He went, it is believed from Eden, MD, to purchase a farm in Nanticoke, MD, because it was closer to deep water, the Nanticoke River. He could ship his farm produce and harvest to market on ships from Nanticoke, MD. He purchased about 350 acres of which some 200 acres were cleared land and 150 acres were timber. He had about eight or ten good work horses to work his farm, which was some operation at that day. He also raised horses and sold them. His wife, Mary, was a very good looking woman, it is said. She ran the farm after her husband died with the help of her eldest [actually 2nd eldest] son, Louis Calvin Toadvine of Nanticoke.
I've been collecting information from other people on the origins of the Toadvine name. Currently I believe that it originates from the name Tostevin, common to the Channel Islands off the northern coast of France.
Someone noticed my mention of the name Tostevin on the internet and put me in touch with a man named David who lives in England who has been researching the early Tostevin inhabitants of the Channel Islands, partly to clear up his own ancestry.
From David I received a letter including a chart and references that accounted for all the males named Tostevin living in the Channel Islands from 1500 to 1700, roughly. On this chart there was a Nicolas Tostevin born 1644 who David says appears to have left the islands based on his non-appearance in any land or church records after some date, prior to 1675 -- the date our Nicholas Toadvine came to the Colonies.
I have seen notes among Nellie and Mel's papers that indicate the name Tostevin is pronounced on the Channel Islands like the name Toadvine is pronounced here in the States. I haven't yet asked David about this.
According to David, the name Tostevin is of French origin 'toster du vin' meaning 'broiled in wine' (Larousse dictionary of French surnames). The Tostevin name on Guernsey most likely started with a Nicolas Tostevin moving there from Brittany after 1514. I have seen a note stating that the name is likely to have been derived from a place on the coast of France named Toste and that the 'vin' is added to mean someone from a place. The note cites another name that is known to have been formed in this way: Poitevin. So the fact that Tostevin might mean something in French could just be a circumstantial linguistic convergence.
Note that the spelling of Nicholas on Guernsey leaves out the 'h' and is sometimes abbreviated to Collas. Or so we believed. I have received another message stating that this is actually a surname of the region. So it could be that some Tostevin males were given Collas as a first name to honor a friend or relative with that as a last name. Or, that the first name Nicholas in its shortened form Collas was simply adopted as a last name as was often done back in those days. Recent information though suggests that this connection between the first name Collas and the last name Collas did not exist.
Here will be excerpts from correspondences:
A comment from Anna-Lee of Prince Edward Island, Canada: I wanted to comment that a few Guernsey Tostevins (mostly females) came to Prince Edward Island, Canada abt. 1811 with the Guernsey Settlers although their name usually shows up here as Taudvin with a few variants.
Apparently I confused two Nicholas Tostevin(s) and associated the wife Marguerite with the American Toadvine ancestor by mistake. I believe I have corrected this. The Nicolas Tostevin born 1644 should have no wife in the data that follows.
The charts here are PDF files. Check out my PDF tips. Other links point to individual records in my GED2html generated web pages.
Note that the birthdates I have in this database are currently a mix of birth and baptism dates -- the chart did not distinguish. I plan on sorting this out later. Also, I did a quick hack of putting in accented characters. I plan on fixing this soon with an attempt to follow the ISO-Latin-1 system.
Note that Pierre, of the third generation, went to England and married there so he has no (immediate) descendants on Guernsey. I currently don't have information on Pierre's descendants.
This chart is on three pages. Trim one edge at each joint and tape them together.
I've tried producing a chart to show all 7 generations, but it requires 3x2 sheets of paper to allow the text to be readable. I don't think anyone wants to do that much cutting and taping when this data is likely to be updated.