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Archiver > ENGLISH-FENS > 2002-06 > 1023705255


From: "Bill Thacker" <>
Subject: RE: [FENS] a mystery-help!!
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 11:39:22 +0100
In-Reply-To: <000501c20f0b$18631a00$a72d9ad8@amdk630>


You could have a look at the Overseers records for the parish to see if she
or her children figure at all, there may be a settlement certificate or a
removal order, alternatively if the parish kept the Overseers account books,
they may show if any payments were made to her or the children.
These documents could be in the County Records office but the degree of
indexing varies enormously from one county to another.
Good luck
Bill Thacker
Chester UK
-----Original Message-----
From: gabby [mailto:]
Sent: 08 June 2002 17:40
To:
Subject: [FENS] a mystery-help!!


I'm hoping some of you will give me your ideas about how to solve my
mystery.
Here it is-
Mary Rowning [b.1730] married John Westnet in 1730. They had 3 surviving
children. John received some financial help from the parish for a short
while before he died in Jan 1745 at 35.
Mary,35, was left with sons aged 1, 3 and 10. They were in Kingston.
In Sept 1746 at Kingston, a Mary Westnet married James Wilkinson, origin/age
unknown but not local.
There are no baptisms/burials for any Wilkinson children .
In Mar 1766, James Wilkinson died at Kingston.

Now, here's the mystery-- there is no further trace of Mary
Wilkinson-marriage or burial- in Kingston or where her sons lived or any
other PR I have been able to search. BUT there is a burial at Kingston Sept
1768 of a Mary WESTNET.

I still think this is Mary Rowning/Westnet/Wilkinson but then why was she
not buried as Wilkinson. She was married to him for 20 years. But why would
she be buried under the name of her 1st husband?
However there is a slim chance that there could have been a daughter Mary
who was unbaptized. She would have to have been born by 1730 to have her
fathers name and that would make her only 16 at marriage to John Wilkinson.
clues-
1.There were no children--widow Mary was 36 but a dau would be 16 and much
more likely to have children.
2. She vanished. If a daughter-It would have been hard for a 36 yr old widow
to move out of the county alone. She wasn't with any of her brothers. If the
mother-she died 2 years after her 2nd husband.
3. There was only 1 Westnet family in Cambs all descended from Mary's
father-in-law, so it isn't another family.

I have been befuddled by this for a long time but now the time has come to
put together the Westnutts in a booklet for the family and I am stumped as
to how to handle Mary. I don't want to put a possibly nonexistent daughter
in the mix but can't account for the burial as Westnet either.

Any ideas welcome!!
Sheila

Old genealogists never die, they just lose their census.


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