If your ancestor couldn't write, records may be wrong

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Braughing

When Margaret's ancestor Thomas Bradshaw (born c 1811) went to Australia in 1855 his parents were described as James and Sarah. Unfortunately online records failed to produce a suitable couple in the Braughing area of Hertfordshire. However Thomas Bradshaw couldn't read and write, so when he was asked for his parent's name he naturally gave the name of the woman he called mother - although she was actually his step mother! The matter in complicated because when one investigates the marriage between James Bradshaw and his first wife, Susanna, there is a ten year gap in child baptisms - including Thomas - probably because they were non-conformists and the relevant registers have not survived.

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A GOODMAN descendant writes in - and I find a Hertfordshire SLOPER

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Rickmansworth

Alan writes in to say that he is a a great great great grandson of Thomas and Zilpah Goodman, and gives details of the later generations who also lived at Rickmansworth. He agrees with my suggestion that there is a possible connection with the Sloper family in Wiltshire.

Hitchin

Sloper is an unusual surname - commonest in an around Wiltshire, and I decided to see I could find any possible Sloper relatives who had moved to Hertfordshire. I found a Rev. Charles Sloper, who was the minister at the Independent Church at Hitchin between 1817 and 1825, when he died "of a broken heart" having lost many of the congregation!