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Wayne Langman
01-11-2008, 12:02 AM
As I was looking through the early Cornwall Church Records, I was struck by a few things.
I knew who I was looking for, so it was easy to find them, but I was struck by some of the comments the original scribes had made. Things like the Elder, the Younger, junior, and so on. It didn’t take much to realize that a junior or younger had to have a senior or elder to go with them, and vice versa. And common sense said that upon the death of the elder the younger would only become the elder only if they had a child of the same name as themselves. These notes had been made to better identify the parents of children, and to
identify which had died.
So I began looking closer at the notes for the family members I knew. And hit paydirt.
Those notes alowed me to identify several new members of the family tree and to which branch they belonged. They also helped narrow death dates, in that the junior member of the pair got promoted when the senior died. So a child born to John the younger and his wife Elizabeth, followed two years later by a birth to just John and Elizabeth meant the Elder had died between the births.
If you use these records be sure to read the notes as well. It will pay off.

Jan1954
01-11-2008, 10:20 AM
A very useful piece of advice, Wayne. It always pays to take notice of those scribbles in the margins - and thank goodness for the scribes who did so!