Hi Ruth, Thank you very much! Another person suggested Billenge is the transcription, and that there is a Billenge Green. That is in a place that makes sense for the family from what I know. http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/chs/rudheath.html has Great Budworth parish local to that area, which is where Thomas Vernon was christened (if I have the right Thomas for that). Further, James' father according to some records is Hugh/Hugo/Huguos, who was also baptized in Davenham. If you have time, would you mind looking at the christening records for Thomas Vernon from 1639? They seem to indicate a Johis Vernon instead of James / Jacobus, which leads me to question the accepted wisdom that Thomas's father was James. That was at Great Budworth, which makes sense as Thomas was from Stanthorne. There is also a Torpoley branch of the family that I am looking into. I can't make sense of that yet though. I will have to share with my Mom your phrase 'Victorian malarkey-to-come'. As a former English teacher, she should get a laugh out of it! Cheers, Tony On Sat, Oct 18, 2014 at 4:32 AM, Ruth Genda <ruthgenda@btinternet.com> wrote: > Hi Tony, > > The entry reads: > > > > Marchii Jacobus Vernon de billenge xviii die > > > > It translates as: Of March James Vernon of Billenge 18 day > > > > So James Vernon was baptised on the 18th March. > > > > The writer has confused the reader by adding the Latin ‘ii’ at the end of > the English word March – it should read Martii. You can see that he does > this regularly not only with the month of March but with other months, too, > if you trawl through more pages. He further confuses by using the French > ‘de’ before Billenge. At the time this was written there were no rules set > down. Grammar, punctuation, spelling and all the rest of the > Victorian-malarkey-to-come was still very much a work in progress. > > > > Where would we be without the fun? > > > > Ruth >