Dear Kristy, Many thanks for your excellent advice. I've noticed that several of my people were married twice, in some cases it was clearly because of first wives dying in childbirth. However, I have a confession to make - I decided to go further back into the parish registers, and I found a Mary BARNARD baptized in 1727 in Ramsey. I can't prove it was the right Mary Barnard, and it means she would have been at least six years older than her husband, but it's the right name, in the same place that Joseph was born in, and roughly the right time. This is another lesson for me - don't always expect husband and wife to be of roughly similar ages. Many thanks for your advice, which I'll certainly remember. All the best, Carole ==================== Dr C P Biggam, FSA Dept of English Language University of Glasgow ==================== ----- Original Message ----- From: Kristy M To: C P Biggam ; Essex UK Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 11:28 PM Subject: RE: [Ess] Mary BARNARD Hi Carole, There is always the chance that she married before, and BARNARD was her married name. This has happened with a family I was researching. I didn't even think to look for a former marriage at first, because she only would have been about twenty-one at the time of her second marriage, but she had been married for a short time previously before being widowed. So it might be worth looking for any male BARNARD marriages to a Mary, then comparing these names to death registers between then and the time of Mary's marriage to Joshua. Or, she was from a completely different place :-) It's worth a shot, though. Good luck. Kristy > From: c.p.biggam@btinternet.com > To: ESSEX-UK@rootsweb.com > Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:57:01 +0100 > CC: c.p.biggam@btinternet.com > Subject: [Ess] Mary BARNARD > > I wonder if anyone can help me with finding the birthplace and birth-date of Mary BARNARD who married Joshua CLARKE in 1755 in Ramsey. Her husband was born about 1733 in Ramsey. I've tried all the more obvious places, including the Ramsey parish register for baptisms in the period 1645-1802. If the register is complete, Mary must have come from elsewhere. > > Best regards, > > Carole Biggam > ==================== > Dr C P Biggam, FSA > Dept of English Language > University of Glasgow > ==================== > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK-admin@rootsweb.com > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ESSEX-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------------------------------------------------------