Can anyone help with this William Sharp(e)? I can't find a birth c1815 or a marriage c1840. Census shows his birthplace as Luton. William & Martha have children Francis 1840, Edwin 1842, Alfred 1844, Flora 1857 and Clara 1858. All are registered at Luton. He is a grainer & decorator in 1851 & 1861. Peter

Hello Peter, "In theory", if he married after 1 July 1837, then he should be in the GRO Marriages Index - but clearly he's not been found. There are several possibles here... 1) the GROIndexes are known to be well-less-than complete; 2) there are pages 'missing' from the indexes [but perhaps unlikely to break a volume at 'Sh', although it happens with TYSOEs!]; 3) his name could've been mistranscribed in either the GRO Index or FreeBMD/other modern transcripts; 4) they married "abroad" - anywhere other than England or Wales; 5) they never married at all - or waited many years.... OTOH it might be worthwhile searching on Martha - although you'd need to buy at least one birth cert [probably the best being Francis William, 1840 DecQ, Luton, 6 95] to find her maiden name. I take it that you've been unable to find the family in 1841 - for that may throw a little additional light. [I see they were in Lambeth in 1851- and in Bedford itself in 1861 - so they evidently moved about a bit.] As for his birth/baptism he merely states "Bedfordshire" in 1851 and "Luton" in 1861 (and, in passing, Flora & Clara were then shown as born Bedford), although he ages consistently from 35 to 45 in the intervening period. If all true, then he'd've been born 1815/16 - and "somewhere" in Bedfordshire. Although I regularly vary my birthplace/residence depending on where I am when asked [if in Worcestershire - Droitwich; elsewhere in England - Worcester; 'anywhere abroad' - Birmingham] because all the questioner really *needs* is a general idea. This method saves the additional exchange of "Where's THAT?" / "Near Worcester [or Birmingham]" - a place the questioner has heard of :-) Luton's a good 20 miles from Bedford - and if he was born in some small hamlet/village within 4 or 5 miles of Luton, he could be forgiven for rounding-off. And there's always the possibility that his parents were non-conformists of some sort, and that their chapel didn't turn its registers in to the PRO when required to in [about] 1850... HTH Gus ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Booth" <pbo08596@bigpond.net.au> To: <bedford@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 8:34 AM Subject: [BDF] WILLIAM SHARP(E) c1815 Luton married MARTHA c1839 > Can anyone help with this William Sharp(e)? > I can't find a birth c1815 or a marriage c1840. Census shows his > birthplace > as Luton. > > William & Martha have children Francis 1840, Edwin 1842, Alfred 1844, > Flora 1857 and Clara 1858. All are registered at Luton. He is a grainer & > decorator in 1851 & 1861. > > Peter > > > > > The List Guidelines > > http://bedfordrootsweb.blogspot.com/ > > The Bedfordshire Surnames List > > http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~hughw/bedf.html > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BEDFORD-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Martha and Francis can be found in Luton in 1841. William is not with them. Ancestry have them indexed as Shark. HO107/4/24 f18 p31 Steven ----- Original Message ----- > > I take it that you've been unable to find the family in 1841 - for that > may > throw a little additional light. [I see they were in Lambeth in 1851- and > in > Bedford itself in 1861 - so they evidently moved about a bit.]