On 13/11/15 15:37, Chris Dickinson wrote: > If the surname is already established in the parish, then you've > probably got a gap in the records. It's not entirely clear whether the surname was present in the parish any earlier, but it was certainly present in most of the adjacent parishes several generation earlier. Indeed, in that tiny pocket of Hampshire, it was and is a common surname. > Both of these individuals could have been born in the 'Commonwealth > Gap' or some other register break. Or have been baptised in the > mother's parish. So you wouldn't have seen them again until they > start producing their own families. Certainly there are a number of possible explanations, and there is indeed a Commonwealth gap in the Michelmersh register. (Most nearby parish registers do not have a Commonwealth gap.) But simply assuming there was one or more individual baptised during this gap is not sufficient to explain all the evidence I've gathered. The commonly accepted version is that a couple (John Kemish and Dorothy Thurston) married in 1672, when they were probably both aged about 12, but had no children until they were both about 30, after which they had at least six. It's not impossible. Childhood marriages did happen, though the other instances I've encountered where amongst the gentry; John in later life was a mere husbandman. One would expect a gap before such a marriage produced children, but an 18 year gap is excessive. Perhaps there were earlier children baptised somewhere without a surviving register, but if so, none (or conceivably one) were mentioned in John's 1737 will. At the moment I'm still considering various alternative explanations. The Isaac is John is just one theory, and not my current favourite. But it would have had a certain neatness to it had there been a precedent for the names being interchangeable at the time. Most likely, I suspect, is that the 1672 marriage was a childless second marriage of the father of the John who had children 1690-1708, and that the latter John happened to have wife and stepmother of the same name. > You may be able to resolve this by extending your record base. Always good advice, and this is a rare enough surname that I can afford to take a global "one-name study" approach to studying it. The vast majority of people in the world today with the surname Kemish descend from one of two men in this corner of Hampshire born in the mid 17th century. And if my current thinking is right, they were brothers. Richard

On Saturday, 14 November 2015 11:50:51 UTC, Richard Smith wrote: > > The commonly accepted version is that a couple (John Kemish and Dorothy > Thurston) married in 1672, when they were probably both aged about 12, > but had no children until they were both about 30, after which they had > at least six. It's not impossible. Childhood marriages did happen, > though the other instances I've encountered where amongst the gentry; > John in later life was a mere husbandman. One would expect a gap before > such a marriage produced children, but an 18 year gap is excessive. > Perhaps there were earlier children baptised somewhere without a > surviving register, but if so, none (or conceivably one) were mentioned > in John's 1737 will. I don't like that scenario at all :-) Chris