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Topic: TWINN Henry, which Margaret Surrah did he marry? (Read 987 times)
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findem
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Posts: 563
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The IGI has the marriage of a Margaret Surrah to Edward Cornhill 5 Oct 1730 at Felsted, during my recent trip to the UK and the ERO I verified the marriage in the Felsted PR fiche.
My ancestors Henry Twinn and Margaret Surrah married 29 Oct 1733 at Felsted, (double checked).
There were two Margaret Surrahs baptised at Felsted:
Margaret (1) the daughter of John & Margaret 1 Feb 1706.
Margaret (2) the daughter of Samuel & Mary 24 Aug 1709.
5 children of Ed Cornhill & Margaret Surrah were baptised at Felsted between 1731 & 1737, Edward, Joseph, Mary, Daniel and another Edward.
5 children of Henry Twinn & Margaret Surrah were baptised at Felsted between 1734 & 1746, Johnathon, Edward, Daniel, Margaret and Fanny.
I checked out Felsted burials 1745 to 1789 looking for a Margaret Twinn or Cornhill, to see if an age was given to solve the problem. All I found was a Margaret Cornel buried 13 July 1747, unfortunately no other info was given.
I suppose logic would have Margaret (1), being the older of the two married first and therefore to Edward Cornhill, that theory would mean both Margarets were about 24 when married.
If Margaret (2) married Edward Cornhill she would have been about 21 when married and Margaret (1) aged about 27 if she married Henry Twinn.
Bearing in mind that logic often plays no part in marriages and that Henry and Margaret named a son Jonathon, both options are possible.
Does anyone have any ideas how to identify which Margaret Surrah married Twinn?
Would like also to know the thoughts on this matter of others who are researching the same Twinn/Fewell line as myself, sorry to throw a spanner in the works!
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findem
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Hi All, No I won't shout at you Sue, not my style, not that you would hear it from here in Australia anyway 
The IGI entries I have seen all state "Birth: About 1709"
I have a problem with the “About 1709” in the IGI listing of the marriage, I feel that "About 1709" suggests the actual date of birth/baptism could be a couple of years, or more, either side of 1709. If so that could encompass a Margaret baptised in 1706 as well as the Margaret baptised in 1709.
Also, my experience with the IGI is that when someone's year of birth is prefixed by "about", it usually signifies that the author has calculated a spouse's year of birth from the marriage date and hasn't found the baptism entry. If the author had sighted the baptism entries I would have expected he/she to enter the full date and place in the Christening field on the IGI. I believe some researchers use, as a rule of thumb, the age at marriage of 21 for a female and 25 for a male. That could explain why Margaret's dob was given as 1709, subtracting 21 from the year of marriage to Ed Cornhill in 1730, gives the year 1709.
My main concern is that if as I suspect the author hadn’t sighted either of the baptism entries, how can we decide which Margaret married Ed Cornhill and more importantly for us, which Margaret married Henry Twinn? All the author may intend to imply is simply that Edward’s wife was named Margaret Surrah and she was probably born about 1709, somewhere.
I am very disappointed that I missed the 18 Jan 1779 burial entry in the Felsted PRs for Margaret Cornhill nee Surrah, it may have given a clue.
I have looked at my notes of the Felsted marriages of Ed Cornhill 5th or 8th Oct 1733 and Henry Twinn 26 June 1733 to see if any witnesses were named but I have none recorded, has anyone else checked either of the two marriages and have witness names? I am wondering if whether I missed recording the witness names or if they simply were not given in the PRs.
If anyone is going to the ERO before 2008 would they consider checking the burial and marriages out for any useful info attached to the PR entries?
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findem
RootsChat Veteran
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Posts: 563
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Hi Sue,
Thanks for the IGI update and with regard to that info:
1) Margaret of John & Margaret c 1 Feb 1706 Felsted
2) Margaret spouse Edward Cornhill b abt 1709 Felsted
3) Margaret of Samuel & Mary c 24 Aug 1709 Felsted
4) Margaret m Edward Cornhill 5 Oct 1730 Felsted
I have verified the items 1, 3 & 4 in the Felsted PR fiche so I have no problem with those.
The problem is that I do not think that we can take item 3 as gospel for reasons Andrea and myself have put forward.
Other than rechecking the two marriages and the burial for any attached info there's not a lot we can do. I had thought perhaps if we could locate any other children of Henry Twinn and his wife Margaret Surrah, there might be a clue to Margaret's father. They baptised children Jonathon 1734, Edward 1735, Daniel 1737, Margaret 1738 & Fanny 1746 so there is a gap 1738 to 1746, at least a Henry should be somewhere. Then of course I realised even if we found a Samuel it wouldn't help because of the son Jonathon. Whether the name Johnathon signifies that Margaret's parents were John and Margaret I don't know.
To be honest I don't really know what to think, I haven't encountered a problem like this before, previously when faced with a choice between two identically named persons with similar date info, there has always been some deciding factor readily available.
Hi Andrea, no I haven't looked for wills and unfortunately will not be able to until my next visit in 2008.
Most of the IGI info on Margaret Surrah has no submitter's name although I did find one somewhere, a Stanford B Swallow, I'll recheck all my IGI info and see if I can find his address, might be the way to go. Thanks for your ideas.
PS I might be offline for a few days, my computer is still playing up so I'm taking it in for a checkup.   
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« Last Edit: Friday 07 April 06 05:16 BST (UK) by findem »
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findem
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Hi All,
Computer now fixed and running smoothly, fingers crossed, touch wood.
I have finally managed to find the entry by Stanford B Swallow, the entry which has the 1709 Margaret Surrah marrying Edward Cornhill. Fortunately it has his postal address attached, so tomorrow I will post a letter off to him, diplomatically asking how he determined which Margaret Surrah married Ed Cornhill.
I just hope he is still at that address and still alive!!
Andrea, thanks very much for the wills advice, I will check the site out within the next few days.
PS the entry gave the full baptism date of 24 Aug 1709 for Margaret, whether or not he was aware of the existence of two Margaret Surrahs remains to be seen! I hope so.
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findem
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Still no reply from Stanford B Swallow.
Clincher has very kindly checked out in Felsted PRs the Margaret Cornell burial of 1779 mentioned in the IGI entry by Stanford. The year is actually 1778 and there were no qualifying details attached to the burial entry. I had hoped there would be an age at burial to define which Margaret Surrah married Henry Twinn.
Clincher did find something that I had missed when I found and recorded the family of Henry & Margaret Twinn. To recap, the daughter Margaret I found was baptised at Felsted 29 Oct 1738 and she I thought was the wife of William Fewell. Clincher found yet another daughter of Henry & Margaret Twinn named Margaret, baptised 24 September 1749 at Felsted. Obviously the first Margaret Twinn died sometime between 29 Oct 1738 and 24 Sep 1749. Clincher emailed me a a copy of the 24 Sep 1749 baptism entry, the entry is very faint compared to others on the same page but is just readable with patience.
So now we have, Margaret Twinn wife of William Fewell was baptised 24 Sep 1749.
Sorry for misleading you all,
Regards.
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findem
RootsChat Veteran
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Hi Julie,
Nice to hear from you, as you say Fewell postings have gone quiet.
I strongly suspect that Edw Cornell, & Edw Cornhill are one and the same but haven't done any research to check it out, mainly because I didn't think that knowing whether or not they are the same person would help. On top of that, whenever I get to the UK my research time at the ERO is limited and usually I have a list as long as your arm to check out. I haven't given up on the problem but I haven't a clue what to do next or where to look.
Regarding the other Fewell site, it's a shame we never heard from Trevor Mills again regarding his father's database, I wonder why!
I am starting to come good now and my interest in genealogy is back 
Regards.
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