Right name - but are you sure he is really your ancestor?

Mike came up with another good example of the situation where a John married an Elizabeth - but were there one or two (or even more) families? This is a common problem, particularly in the 18th century when there is no census to help, and beginners often assume that the first "matching" couple they find must be the right one and end up on a wild goose chase after someone else's ancestors. Click here to see how I was able to show Mike that there were two different families or read Right Name, Wrong Body to see other examples where our ancestors seem to have been trying to confuse us!

The Northchurch (Berkhamsted) grave of Peter the Wild Boy had been listed

The BBC has published an article on the Grave of Peter the Wild Boy, at Northchurch, to record the fact that the stone has been given Grade II listing status.

See an 1822 account of Peter.

Thanks to the LostCousins Newsletter for the information about the BBC news item.

When things get difficult - Which Joseph is which??

Diane has hit a brick wall. Joseph Norris married Mary Wheeler and had a number of children  baptised in Berkhamsted St Peter. The problem is that there were two baptisms for Joseph, and a detailed analysis is unable to reliably identify which Joseph married Mary. My answer NORRIS, Berkhamsted & Northchurch, 18th century contains information which could be relevant to anyone with a similar problem in the 18th century - when there is no census returns to help, but where militia lists can be useful. The case is a classic  Right Name, Wrong Body" , and all I can suggest is what I do when I hit a serious brick wall in my own research.

Why did James and Ann marry on Christmas Day?

One of the joys of family history research is that when you answer one question several new questions immediately present themselves.

Last October I gave Carolyn some advice about the Ashby/Sherman family of Aldbury and Northchurch (part of Berkhamsted) and she has now sent me details of the marriage certificate. It appears that, having already got quite a large family they decided it was about time they got married. Obviously there would be people around who would be concerned about the souls of this couple who were "living in sin." Was a Christmas Day marriage - perhaps involving other wayward couples - part of a recruitment drive by the local Baptist Minister to enlarge his congregation? While I have not done so, it might be worth looking at adjacent entries in the Chapel register to see if others were married at the same time.  Were the earlier children already baptised prior to the wedding - perhaps by the Church of England - perhaps at Aldbury? For full details of the research so far see Ashby/Sherman, Aldbury 1840/1851.

Peter the Wild Boy at Berkhamsted

The 18th century liked freaks and in 1723 a young boy was found wandering in the woods in Hanover. It was believed he had grown up with no human contact and was therefore considered noteworthy. He spent the later days of his life on Broadway farm, near Bourne End, then part of Northchurch Parish, and Berkhamsted town.

I have posted an account of his life at Berkhamsted, originally written in 1782 or 1783, and published in Biographica Curiosa or Memoirs of Remarkable Characters of the reign of George the Third (1822).

The copy of the book I have illustrates another area where you can look for family history information. It came to me in a box of miscellaneous family items some 40 years ago - and has on the fly sheet the signature of a previous owner - my great great grandfather, John Gibbs.