As you can guess, we were both a little distressed at this news. I didn't want to open a can of worms, but I had no choice because cousin Margaret and I like our research to be accurate. We both knew Mary's surname was Neale and not Scales as was written about in the last post. Neither one of us wants to be researching the wrong family as it can give way to building a brick wall not to think about all the wasted time spent. We both realize our research can change at any given moment, too. Then new challenges ensue which can be exhilarating to the family history researcher. Sometimes one needs that stimulation.
It's been a couple days now since I wrote that post and consulted with Margaret. The holiday festivities and excitement of a new year has past. I felt free to spend a little time looking on Lincs to the Past website's parish register of Muckton, Lincolnshire, England -- the first parish Margaret and I suspected as Mary's baptism place.
The Muckton Parish Records has 28 images starting with 1695 and ending with 1812. Knowing that Mary was 24 when she married George in 1810, that would make her baptism to be about 1786. Guessing where to start looking, I toggled to image 20 only to discover I was one image too far. I was hoping Image 19 -- Muckton Parish Records - Marriages, Burials & Baptisms (1775-1788) would yield the information I was seeking. I was right. Not only did I find Mary's baptism but along the way, I found her parents names and entries of some of her siblings!
The image shows two pages of PR entries. The first Neale I found was John son of George and Elizabeth, baptized 31 March 1776. Scanning further on down the left side and then the right, I found more sibling entries every couple years. The sixth was Mary's: Mary Daug.r of Geo: and Elizabeth Neale baptized July 17th [1785]. The date was in our range based on her age at marriage. By finding this, I felt like I had a charmed life, but I didn't do anything special, the entry was there all along just waiting for me.
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| Entry for Mary Neale baptized 17 July 1785 Muckton, Lincolnshire, England. [Screenshot from Lincs to the Past.] |
John baptized 4 Feb 1780
George baptized 4 Feb 1781
William baptized 8 Feb 1781
Joseph buried 3 Oct 1783
Joseph baptized 1 Jan 1784
Mary baptized 17 July 1785
Joseph buried 6 Apr 1787The next image number 20 yielded three more entries:
Elizabeth baptized 10 Apr 1789
Susannah baptized 6 Mar 1791
George baptized 9 Jun 1793It's not unusual to "recycle" the name of a child who dies and give it to the next born of the same sex as you can see by the three entries for Joseph and two for George. I couldn't find a baptism entry for the first Joseph. He may have been baptized in another parish. Nor did I find a burial for the first George. There were several areas on the images which were faded and difficult to read.
Looking at earlier images for the same parish, I thought maybe I would find George and Elizabeth's marriage. No luck. They may have been married in another parish. Any more searching on this family history is out of range for my researching collateral lines.
All in all, there is a sense of accomplishment and closure to that little mystery of Mary's baptism place and date. Yet, this wasn't all the good news to start the new year. While looking on other pages for Neales. I stumbled across a baptism entry for a William (1762) son of Isaac and Ann VAMPLEW! That is another family I am interested in -- Isaac is my 5x great grandfather on my dad's side. I had nine children listed for Isaac and wife Ann (Cuthbert), and now there is 10! Nice little bonus!
This is starting to be an interesting new year!
