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Yes, I have plenty more now - and it's so long ago that I can't reconstruct how much I knew then. Certainly I now know what the family connection was between William Jefferies and the novelist Richard Jefferies. And that William was born probably at Badbury 30 Sept 1811 and baptized at Chiseldon 12 Nov 1811. Are you aware that William and Louisa Jefferies went out with Webbs, also from Wiltshire, who were close relations of theirs? And that there are surviving pictures of William and Louisa, and details of what they got up to in PMB including gun-running? I don't think their house Nonsuch exists now, but the name survives in a street name on Town Hill in PMB. I haven't located their graves, so details would be interesting ...
If you'd like to email me (^(*)) we could perhaps exchange details? I'd be glad to know how you fit in to the family.
Geoff

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Hello again Jan
As it happens, it seems that your Robert French is already in my tree, which would make you my 6th cousin, I think. Perhaps we should share details via private messages.
Geoff

Hi Geoff
I idly googled Ebenezer Chew as I sometimes do, because my Dad would talk about "old Ebenezer", and your request on rootschat came up.  He was my great, great grandfather through his daughter Lilian.  Let me know if you would still like family information up to the present time.
Best wishes
Rose

Yes, please, Rose - I've only today registered on your reply. I have one generation of Nichollses after Lilian, and would be glad to know about later descendants.
Geoff

If anyone is in a position to look up this marriage or offer advice, I'd be very grateful. The problem is that it seems to have been registered twice in the General Register Office index, and I don't understand why:

1879 Sept quarter, Axminster district, vol. 5b p. 17: Edward CHEW / Elizabeth MAJOR

1879 March quarter, Exeter district, vol. 5b p. 121: Edward Neville CHEW / Elizabeth MAJOR

I can't be absolutely certain (without buying the certificates, which I may in the end have to do) that this is the same couple, but it seems likely.
They are running the George Inn at Seaton and Beer, Axminster, in the 1881 census (RG11 piece 2130 folio 52 page 21): Edward aged 27, born Tetbury, Gloucs.; Elizabeth aged 26, born Seaton, Devon; no children.
They aren't my own line, but I'm working through the CHEW marriages for the sake of a CHEW one-name study. For this reason I'm trying to economize on certificates.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Geoff

I'm repeating and slightly rewording this message (the gist was sent yesterday as a reply to an old posting, but therefore with an unhelpful subject heading), with apologies.

Anyway, I have a question about a William Jefferies, born maybe about 1810 in Wiltshire: is anyone able to suggest a date and place of his baptism and/or of birth (and names of parents)?

This is what I know. He is in the 1841 census at Marlborough, living with his wife Louisa, saying he was born in the county and with a reported age of 30 (so presumably born in Wilts within 5 years of 1810). William and Louisa, whose maiden name was Bullock, were apparently married in Devizes in 1837; William is there said to be "of Hungerford". (Louisa's parents are listed in extracted records from Devizes in the IGI, as James Bullock and Elizabeth Amor of Avebury.) 6 daughters were born to William and Louisa in Marlborough, Wilts (Louisa, 1839; Alice and Emma, twins, 1843; Mary, 1845; Clara, 1847; Emily, 1849). In June 1850 William embarked with his wife and 5 daughters (Emily died young) on the "Minerva", under the Byrne emigration scheme to Natal. They arrived in Durban on 3 July 1850, the ship was wrecked off Durban that day and broke up during the night of 3-4 July. All the passengers survived the hair-raising rescue through the surf, but 300 tons of their luggage is reported to have been lost. (Not all the passengers were too poor: a racehorse apparently managed to swim ashore, and the lid of a grand piano was salvaged.) Another daughter was born to William and Louisa on Durban beach, where the new arrivals had had to find shelter in tents etc, on 31 July 1850, and they had yet another daughter in Natal in 1855. All the daughters are supposed to have been redheads.

Reports passed down through the family say that William always claimed to be from Draycott Foliat near Swindon, which is where Richard Jefferies, c.1734-1822, great-grandfather of the more famous Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) is also said in older literature to have been from. (The later Richard Jefferies, himself born at the nearby Coate, wrote novels as well as non-fiction based in Wiltshire, and he and the family are quite well documented. I believe there is a Richard Jefferies museum in Swindon, as well as other memorials. He is in all the reference books, in the Dictionary of National Biography, etc.) If there is a link between William's family and that of the two Richards, it could be significant that William turned immediately to running a bakery after his farm in Natal failed - Richard's family had included bakers.  But if the literature is right, the family connection between William and Richard must be at least three generations back.

I haven't managed to find any plausible baptism or birth for William, and wonder whether anyone can help!

Geoff