12 May 2009

Two for the price of one

A double wedding celebration today . . . for the same person.

Elizabeth Essex, my great-great-great-great-great-grandmother (that's five greats), was born in the Cambridgeshire village of Cottenham in 1737, the daughter of John & Judith (nee Norman), and married her first husband on 14th May 1762. Francis Deacons, said husband, was already a widower, according to the Parish Register, and died six years later. However, they managed to pass the time by producing a couple of children (Ann & Judah).

Then, with remarkable slowness for the time, Elizabeth married William Webb (this one's my relative) today in 1770 in the nearby (-ish) village of Landbeach. This marriage produced four children (two girls then two boys) prior to Elizabeth's death in 1782.

Alas, I know very little else about her, mainly because this was before the advent of the ten-yearly census which gives us to much information. So we rely on the parish registers and other snippets. I need to get back to the records office to look for some more snippets!

I have followed three of Elizabeth's children; Martha Webb goes on to marry Thomas Flavel and some of her children went off to the antipodes . . . . voluntarily. Thomas Webb married Mary Gunn and continued the family line downwards towards me. James Webb married Anne Cowling and died in 1861 in Landbeach, "without issue" as they say.

More soon.

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