Peter, Thank you so much for taking time to look for Booth individuals in Market Drayton, Shropshire. The Hugh Wallis site is always helpful. You found more IGI records for children of George Booth and Sarah of Market Drayton or that area than I did: Mary Booth - Female Christening: AUG 1795 Market Drayton, Shropshire, England Ann Booth - Female Christening: 9 AUG 1797 Market Drayton, Shropshire, England Sarah Booth - Female Christening: 25 FEB 1807 Market Drayton, Shropshire, England Mary Booth - Female Christening: 28 FEB 1807 Market Drayton, Shropshire, England These seem to be the children of the George Booth and Sarah Shuker whose 22 MAY 1794 marriage in Market Drayton is found in an IGI. Likely there were more children in amongst these. You're very right about not jumping to any conclusion about these being the parents and sisters of my Joseph Booth, born 26 Nov 1808 in Shakeford, a small village just south of Market Drayton and likely christened in Market Drayton. Perhaps I need to borrow microfilm for the Market Drayton church records, looking for an alternate spelling of the surname. Or try that with the IGI search. The two Joseph Booth baptisms you found don't immediately ring true, as he always reported Drayton, Market Drayton or Shakeford [near Market Drayton] as his birthplace. Of course the family might have moved.... Again, thank you. Barbara Bradley Petura Descendant of George Booth, Joseph Booth Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:37:29 +1000 From: "Peter Booth" <pbo08596@bigpond.net.au> Subject: Re: [ENG-SHROP] Joseph BOOTH, son of George BOOTH To: eng-shropshire-plus@rootsweb.com Barbara,     I'm a Booth, but not related. Mine come from Nottinghamshire. But I couldn't miss trying to help a namesake.     I'd suggest you go to the Hugh Wallis site, extract all the Booth records from the Market Drayton batches and sort them into families with eras. See http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers/CountyShropshire.htm#M     Looking at the batches, there are some gaps in dates, so every record is not there. Click on each batch and search using just the Booth surname. It looks like the earliest record is the marriage of Gerard Booth in 1697. Try and work from there.     As for George and Sarah, if you do a parent search, you'll find a Mary 1795, Ann 1797, Mary 1807 and Sarah 1807. Not all these appear in official batches. I also wonder about dates as 1807 Mary has 28th and Sarah 25th. It may be a typo.     There are only two christening records for a Joseph between 1798 -1818 in Shropshire. 1809 in Wellington father Joseph, 1816 in Dawley Magna father George. It could be Joseph wasn't christened until age 8.     My assessment is that some of the children were either not christened or records are missing. The later additions of Sarah and Ann add weight to this.     But that means you can't really jump one way or the other on the origins of Joseph.     Peter Booth in Sydney