Hi, Yes, this is my conundrum! You are right, she may have been illegitimate. I didn't find the Jesse Sheppard married to Ann Perret. So that certainly could be a clue. I could speculate that they would be reluctant to baptize an illegitimate child and felt more comfortable doing it after the mother was married, but why would the record show the child and mother's names as Parrett after the mother was married to a Sheppard? As I said, I have run out of ideas to track this down. I hope someone with more experience than I have will have some ideas. Thanks for the information about Jesse Sheppard. Blessings, Bob in FL, USA On Sep 24, 2013, at 3:00 AM, eng-somerset-request@rootsweb.com wrote: > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 11:37:36 +0100 > From: "elizabeth howard" <elizgh@btinternet.com> > Subject: [ENG-SOM] Looking for information on George Pitman's wife > Maria orMarriah > To: <eng-somerset@rootsweb.com> > Message-ID: <5EDDA2F95DDB42228E20B26C9FF3D335@max> > Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; > reply-type=original > > Hi, the 1851 census certainly looks like Sheppard for > Ann , and the marriage looks like Perrett . There is a bapt in Horsington > in 1807 birth date 1803 of a Maria dau of Ann Perrott , and I would imagine > this is her . No father`s name is given so I would think this she was > illegitimate . Maybe Ann married Mr Sheppard later . Interestingly and > inexplicably , Jesse Sheppard married Ann Perret in Horsington in 1806 > .........so why was Maria bapt a year after their marriage ? I can`t find > Jesse in the 1841 census so maybe he had died .

On 24/09/2013 16:17, Bob Pittman wrote: > You are right, she may have been illegitimate. I didn't find the Jesse > Sheppard married to Ann Perret. So that certainly could be a clue. I could > speculate that they would be reluctant to baptize an illegitimate child and > felt more comfortable doing it after the mother was married, but why would > the record show the child and mother's names as Parrett after the mother was > married to a Sheppard? It's possible the mother didn't want to baptise an illegitimate child. Many single mothers did but the incumbent may have been one of the "hellfire and damnation" type clergymen so she didn't want to be upset at what should be a joyous occasion. Unfortunately, in a small parish, the incumbent would have known the husband wasn't the father of the child so recorded the baptism without the father's name. The couple probably wouldn't see the baptism register so wouldn't know what had been written, even if they could read which they may not have been able to do. -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, Ashcott, Shapwick, Greinton and Clutton, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk