In message <000a01c6076d$234f5830$382d37d2@PEANUT>, Marlene Shipman <marlene.s@xtra.co.nz> writes >Hate to state the obvious but are you sure this mystery man (whose surname >you haven't given) wasn't simply mistranscribed????????? >EVERY lister here will be able to tell horror stories of mistranscriptions >some of which bear no resemblance to the original! >If you gave a name, village and approximate d.o.b I am sure people would be >only to glad to check for you. >Likelihood is that any suppport would have come from the Church. This would be quite surprising, unless for some reason the woman had a special connection with the church. Even in the days when poor relief was parish based, it was not handed out by the Church, but by (voluntary) officers chosen from among local inhabitants. They were called Overseers and were responsible for collecting money from the better off folk in the area of the parish and handing it out to the poor of various kinds. This changed in 1834 to a Union based system, where half a dozen or a dozen small parishes were combined, under the supervision of a Board of Guardians.They took people into the workhouse or supplied 'outrelief' to paupers in their own homes. The only connection with the church was that the churchwardens would often have historical control over chairty funds, and hand out blankets, coal, shirts and shifts, to selected poor or aged persons/ > -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society