Dear Elaine, I suspect Mary SLYFIELD married "Mr" BLAXALL somewhat later than 1885, as I have found the following two births registered at Maldon Registration District which would have covered Tolleshunt D'Arcy. Dorothy Mary BLAXALL Quarter ended December 31 1898 Carl (?) Glyn (?) BLAXALL Quarter ended September 30 1894 It is a reasonable assumption that most people are born in the same quarter in which their birth is registered. However, if one is born near the end of a quarter, it is not unknown for the registration to take place in the next quarter ! You could apply for copies of the original Birth Certificates which would give you the father's name & occupation, the mother's maiden name and the actual place of birth, but these are not cheap and you want to be sure these are the ones you want before splashing out money ! Sorry about the question marks - Carl (?) Glyn (?) the original entries were handwritten into the Index ledgers which themselves, after many years of handling, were microfiched, ink blots, page corners turned down and all ! I gave myself the task of extracting all BLAXALL entries from the microfiches, complete with variations, from 1837 and still haven't finished them all. I had great trouble trying to decypher the earlier entries. I'm fairly certain about the "Carl" entry (although I did wonder about the use of a Germanic first name), but the "Glyn" was a pure guess on my part, I could not think of any other first name that would have fitted. Hereunder are the only male BLAXALL marriages I have for the Maldon District during the period 1837 - 1900. Henry James BLAXALL 1875 03 31 Maldon Edward James BLAXALL 1878 09 30 Maldon Ernest BLAXALL 1892 12 31 Maldon William Robert BLAXALL 1897 03 31 Maldon From these one could hazard a guess that the guy you are seeking is Ernest BLAXALL who was married in the quarter ended 31 December 1892. This marriage would seem to be just that leetle bit more justified for the births of Dorothy Mary (1898) and Carl Glyn (1894) than the circa 1885 you are quoting. Here again a copy of the Marriage Certificate would prove who Ernest married, but we still can't be too sure for spending money ! I once visited the Family History Centre, looked at the original hand-written Indexes, paid out circa £85 & when the Certificates turned up in the mail about a week later, only two of them were mine ! I had spent a fortune on very distant cousins several times removed ! Do you have any other info you can pass on for Angela and/or me to "process" so that we can narrow the field somewhat ? Meanwhile you might like to subscribe yourself to the BLAXALL Mailing List ? That way you would pick-up any Blaxall snippets that might be posted. Send an e-mail to < BLAXALL-L-subscribe@rootsweb.com > with the word "subscribe" (but without the quote marks) in both the Subject Box & the Body of the message. Kind Regards Geoff Lewin Blaxall