Thomas Partridge of Sharnbrook year of birth

[johnP-bedford]

Hello, Just need to run this by you ... trying to establish birth year of Thomas.

Thomas Partridge was christened at Sharnbrook 30/DEC/1764 - on his first marriage to Martha Swannel at Felmersham 6/JUL/1780 it states she is 'a minor with consent of parents by licence'. This is backed up by her christening in 1761 so she'd be about 19 assuming she was christened just after her birth.

BUT if Thomas was born in 1764 he would also be very much a minor being only 16. So I am trying to establish his year of birth. From the Muster list of Bletsoe of 1803 Thomas P is described as age 46 having 4 children aged less than 10 (& that fits OK). Thus he'd be born 1757 so he'd be of full age on his marriage to Martha.

So we check his burial - if we can find one in Bletsoe - as that's where all his children were born (last one in 1809). He's not on the Bletsoe PR up to 1812 - so he's in that 1812 - 1837 (info not easily available) period probably. The BVI has a burial of a TP in Sept 1819 age 64 - so gives him born in 1755.

So do I assume that he's born between 1755-1757

Ideas or conclusions please !

Regards John 

 

[bedfordshire boy]

Hi John

I think you've answered your own question! I don't see what other conclusion you could draw. Have you checked the 1764 baptism entry in the parish register to see if an age is given? If it's not an infant a helpful vicar will often state "age 7" or whatever.

Even though burial ages are a bit suspect, particularly the older the person was, often being overstated, it's in the same ballpark as the Muster age.

BVI only covers baptisms and marriages - it's the NBI that covers burials.

When you say 1812-37 "info not easily available", most of Beds parish registers for this period have been filmed by the LDS so are available at LDS Family History Centres and at Bedford. Many of them are on the IGI (or at least baptisms and marriages are) and basic details of burials are on the NBI. The extra detail that comes from the parish register (eg burial of Elizabeth wife of Thomas Partridge; marriage witnesses etc) is only available from the PR but a lot of enjoyment surely comes from viewing copies of the registers. Not everything is available on the internet!

But as you know from your Hunts branch, we are extremely lucky in Beds to have the internet coverage/parish register transcripts that we have. Many Hunts PRs have not even been filmed by the LDS so the only option is a trip to Huntingdon.

Regards

David

[johnP-bedford]

Thanks David

Tell me where are the original source Parish Registers housed for Beds - is it at county archives at Bedford, or at the LDS centre at London Road at Cutenhoe Road in Luton, or are they retained at the local churches.

regards John