My missing Mary mystery!

[Jessie 888]

Apologies if I'm putting this on the wrong place but I'm new. And not very bright!

Right, so my 3x grandfather Henry Gregor (1785-1856) had 18 children with two wives. His first wife, Jane Brenton, died in 1826 and he married his second wife, Mary Winter, in 1827. One of his middle children is my brick wall: Mary Gregor (c. 1828??) who later married John Rescorla, a blacksmith from St Columb. The problem is there is no record of her being baptised in St Merryn, Cornwall, where the rest of the family lived and were all baptised there. I've checked the parish registers between 1826-1830 about a million times. Nor can I find a record of her marriage. She just turns up (aged 22) in the 1851 census living with her father, Henry, and her husband. So where has she been, where did she meet her husband, etc. I checked the genUK St Columb pages and the Cornish Census Search but she's obviously well-hidden. I couldn't find her in the 1841 census either but you'd think that, if she was only 12 or 13, she would still be living at home? Am I missing something really obvious? Be gentle with me!

By the way, I don't know if this helps but when Henry first married Mary, the first two of their ten children were Joseph Gregor (bap Dec 1827) and Nancy Gregor (bap March 1829) so where the heck does missing Mary fit in?!

[Wilkes_ml]

Could Mary have been born prior to her parent's marriage and hence baptised under the surname Winter? It's not unusual for birthdates to be fudged a bit to make it look like a child was born after the marraige.

Secondly, it wasn't unusual either to be working as young as 12 or 13, especial if in service. Many young girls were sent out to work as servants if their parents were poor. Alternatively if the family were wealthy, young girls may be sent away as "companions" for elder female relatives (maybe I've watched too many period dramas )

The other possibility is that Mary was actually baptised as Nancy...and I think this is the most likely of the options. names often got changed, especially if they had a "formal" name, and a "pet" name ..and people quite often interchanged between the two!

[Jessie 888]

I hadn't considered that last suggestion ... that's food for thought. My first theory was that wife Mary had had a baseborn child beforehand and I have searched everywhere for her but no luck. Originally, I assumed (naughty!) that Mary Winter was the Mary Ann Winter, daughter of William and Johanna Winter, baptised in St Merryn on Sept 1808 ... but no ... in the 1851 census I finally noticed it said she was born in Penryn. I figure she was the Mary, daughter of James and Hannah Winter, baptised on April 9 1809 in Penryn/St Gluvias, so I spent ages looking through all the registers looking for any suspicious baseborn children and the Winter name but no joy. Hence head-banging stage.

Could Mary have been born prior to her parent's marriage and hence baptised under the surname Winter? It's not unusual for birthdates to be fudged a bit to make it look like a child was born after the marraige.

Secondly, it wasn't unusual either to be working as young as 12 or 13, especial if in service. Many young girls were sent out to work as servants if their parents were poor. Alternatively if the family were wealthy, young girls may be sent away as "companions" for elder female relatives (maybe I've watched too many period dramas )

The other possibility is that Mary was actually baptised as Nancy...and I think this is the most likely of the options. names often got changed, especially if they had a "formal" name, and a "pet" name ..and people quite often interchanged between the two!

[Jessie 888]

I'm still chuckling away to myself at my own stupidity. You've saved me months more of futile research ... thank you so much! I knew that Ann was sometimes turned into Nancy but it hadn't even occurred to me that Mary had become Nancy ... and it all fits. I shall happily adapt to being the numpty of this forum and make everybody feel useful and appreciated!

[Wilkes_ml]

it does make it easier if a child is actually baptised with two names, because then you can understand why they switched between names. I guess now days we tend to stick to one name and keep it for life!

I learnt early on, when I had a Matilda who became Caroline then back to Matilda again! And the census can make it even more confusing, with possible errors when the enumerator copied the names across to the final census copy. Also ages could fluctuate a lot in the census so it could appear you have two children born close together!

[Megan Roberts]

Another point to bear in mind with parish registers is that they were often written up sometime after the event, and if the priest had not a good memory or kept proper notes that's how errors appear in the registers.

I've seen baptisms where the child's name is missing, and I have one in my tree where the parents are identified as George and Diana, but were actually John and Diana ..........

[Wilkes_ml]

My ancestor William Rufus had parents listed as William & Sarah, which really threw me off track for 20 years! His mother was actually Mary, the same as all his other siblings! I've seen baptisms where the child isn't named at all, and marriages where one of the couple wasn't named at all....just a blank space .....every time I see one, I just think how lucky I am not to be decended from them!

[Jessie 888]

I'm definitely learning the hard way by making lots of mistakes but I've noted all your examples as further warnings to me!

Just as a final point, I found out that my poor missing Mary/Nancy didn't have much of a life at all. She got married to John Rescorla at 21, then her mother, Mary, died six months later then Nancy herself died at the end of the year, just 22, bless her. Needless to say, her husband moved on pretty quickly and remarried six months later!

[Wilkes_ml]

Working through family history can be so sad at times I've found many of my families where the parent's died young, or a couple lost the majority of their babies. I think this is where going through complete blocks of burial registers can come in handy, as a sudden increase of burials within the church can indicate an epidemic of some disease.

The woman I am working on at the moment was buried on the same day as her 4 month old daughter, so I doubt it was childbirth. Another ancestor lost her mother & sister (only sibling) close together and then died herself within 6 months. Her brother in law also died shortly after, leaving about 10 children orphaned.