>From a recent posting on Thomas the immigrant... > Widow Ann Barnes of St. Edmunds. His licence calls him a yeoman and widower, > of Clatford, county, of Southhampton, As it happens, I was sorting through some papers over the weekend and came across a copy of this record. Needless to say, there were no commas in the original. What it actually said was "county of South" -- which was apparently the abbreviation in use at the time for the county more recently called Hampshire. The interesting thing is that the original handwriting style allows some confusion between S and H, u and n, and o and a, so that I was at first tempted to decipher it as "county of Hants" -- which is the modern abbreviation of Hampshire. However, I later decided that "South" was the word after all. Also, the prospective bride was listed as Anns, with a distinct "s" on the end. Given that her name was Agnes, this makes perfect sense (Annis was a normal variant of Agnes). > His first wife's name doesnt appear to be known (of course we all > think it is Elizabeth) Those of us who have seen the parish register for Goodworth Clatford *know* that Elizabeth, the wife of Thomas Blanchard, was buried there in 1636 (as has been posted in this discussion group more than once in the past). The register also has the baptisms of Thomas' children, aside from George (also posted here), including some that evidently died young, but whose burials were not entered. > Child by Second Wife: > Brent, b. 1639, d 1639 onboard the Jonathan No, this is a garbled account. Agnes' maiden name was BENT. The child was baptized at Goodworth Clatford in 1638 as Agnes, daughter of Thomas and Agnes Blanchard (also posted here before). John Chandler