Alan, Trying now to digest the information you sent earlier to the list. > In one household at Niagara, we find (via excruciating > handwriting) David NIBBS 23 or 73 (I'm going for the former) with > Anne 53, Naomi 30, Charles 28, and Ellen 20 all born England. > Ellen, bless her, is our linchpin. I firmly believe she is the > one baptised at Deddington on 5th or 15th November 1829 to > parents John and Ann. > Now they had a son David baptised 31 December 1836, also in > Deddington. No sign of Isaac, Charles or Naomi but read on. > There is a Nehemiah baptised 25th April 1819. Now we need to > check as carefully as we can that this is Nehemiah, a male > presumably and that Naomi is definitely recorded as such. In > some ways I hope so because I have another theory re Nehemiah - > see later. Yes, I can see Ellen bap 5 Nov 1829 and David bap 31 Dec 1826 (not 1836 as above which I guess is a typo). I did also wonder if Naomi could perhaps be Nehemiah bap 25 Apr 1819. Ann aged 53 could well be Ann Aldridge as I have no confirmed birth/bap date for her. You say no sign of Isaac, but Isaac isn't shown in your list in the Niagara household, so confused by that? > > There's no baptism for Charles in Deddington born on > 15th February 1821, perhaps born in Ireland or Devon. If you > look at the family grouping below, he would fit very nicely > between Nehemiah and William. I can't see a William bap 1823 at Deddington? Nevertheless, I agree that there is a good gap between the baptisms I have seen for Charles to have been born to John and Ann at around this time. > > Now, there is an Isaac who was baptised at Somerton in 1824 to > 'another' John and Ann. Somerton is close to deddington and the > birthplace of Ana's ancestors. Was this baptism in reality a > late baptism for the unbaptised Isaac bc1814? I would suggest so, > as ther's no further trace of any such Isaac in England. What is > 'troublesome' though, is that John the father is described as a > brickmaker whereas the John we've mentioned earlier was a > labourer/weaver. It's the waever description that doesn't fit. > Don could you please look closely at the references in the > Deddington parish records and consider, taking into account the > 1850 census, whether there were two separate John/Ann families or > just the one. I agree there was an Isaac baptised on 15 Feb 1824 at Somerton to parents John KNIBBS and Anne (with an "e"). I hadn't previously connected this with John and Ann Aldridge. As you say later, Deddington John is identified as a labourer/weaver and Somerton John a brickmaker. I note that Deddington John is listed as a labourer up until Nehemiah's baptism in 1819. The next event in the PR is the baptism of David in 1826, when John is listed as a weaver. I suspect that brickmaking wasn't a highly skilled job, so moving from labourer to brickmaker wouldn't be a big step. We know he did progress from labourer to weaver which I guess is the difficulkt step to understand. > > .......... we can say that Ann died after 1850 whilst > husband John was probably not then alive. I've never come across burials that I have matched to either John or Ann so no reason to doubt that they may have died in America. > > What of siblings William, John and Nehemiah (if not Naomi)? I have John marrying Mary All HALL at Enstone in 1834, but no sign of them after that time so assume they moved away from the area. All I have so far for Nehemiah, David and Ellen is their baptisms at Deddington, and then nothing, so they clearly went somewhere. The relationships I've calculated between John KNIBBS (husband of Ann ALDRIDGE) at the top of this line to those of my line who I know emigrated to America is as follows: - 2nd cousin once removed of John KNIBBS who married Amelia Unknown and emigrated to Wisconsin before 1858. - 2nd cousin once removed of Joseph KNIBBS who married Hannah BENNETT and emigrated to New York in about 1840. - 1st cousin twice removed of Emily KNIBBS who married Richard HOLLOWAY and appears in New York prior to British Columbia, I think after 1881. Not sure if these latter facts add any value - probably not! Anyway Alan, it's certainly a very credible solution that you've put forward and on the face of it, confirmation of just a few of the facts would prove it all one way or the other. A tremendous thanks also to Marsha for the extracts from the New York census that enabled Alan to fit it all together! Thanks Marsha! Don