Hi Dan
I'd forgotten about this post as it was getting on for 9 years ago.
Catherine Johnson, daughter of James and Mary was my 3 x Great Grandmother, hence the interest in the family.
When I first read your post I thought John Bland Johnson can't possibly be James the shoemaker from Blakeney's son because his daughter Ann's birthdate on her 1822 baptism (with sister Elizabeth Margaret) is listed as 28 June 1820 and John's is listed on his 1821 baptism as 17 Sept 1820. Mary couldn't possibly have had another child three month's later. Added to that James had two children prior to the 1815 marriage to Mary Bland (who has to be John's mother because of his middle name) - William born 14 Jul 1812 and baptised 12 Jan 1813 and Mary Ann born 21 Oct 1814 and baptised with her brother James on 9 Feb 1818. We'd seen the James Johnson and Mary Bland marriage when first looking at the family but had discounted it for those reasons. The most obvious one was James Johnson and Mary Judge who married at Stepney St Dunstan on 3 June 1811.
But then, as you know, John Bland Johnson's baptism lists his father James as a shoemaker and the family residing in Mile End Old Town which is the same on all the other children's baptisms. It was always a bit strange that James and Mary didn't have a son named John because James' father was John but it wasn't that unusual as have seen that sometimes before for this period. We'd assumed there was just another James Johnson, shoemaker, in Mile End Old Town and he had married Mary Bland and they were a different family. Also as a result of this idea, we'd also not had a look at any other children to this other possible James, shoemaker, and Mary. But, as I'm sure you are aware, there appear to be no other children to another James and Mary who was a shoemaker at that time other than those to James from Blakeney.
So there was quite a bit of head scratching going on again yesterday with this family, something that has happened before because it took about 10 years to track down Catherine Johnson's parents because her 1844 marriage lists her father as John Johnson a shoemaker and every census lists her as born in or around Mile End c1824. Prior to the parish registers going on Ancestry we'd even been through those for Stepney and surrounding parishes on microfilm down in London. In this case what solved the mystery was one of the witnesses to her marriage, a Mary Ann Bishop. It turned out Mary Ann Bishop was Mary Ann Johnson who married Robert Bishop in Limehouse in 1836 and following his death sometime after the 1841 Census she remarried to William Marshall in 1848 in Hackney and Catherine under her married name of Catherine Stone was one of the witnesses. The signatures matched. Added to that Mary Ann Bishop had witnessed her sister Ann's marriage to Philip Pearce in 1841 at Hackney (turned out to be a favourite church with the siblings for some reason even thought they lived in Mile End
). So witnesses signatures helped finally solve the mystery that the parish clerk or vicar had put the wrong father's name on Catherine's marriage entry.
So back to James Johnson and Mary Bland marriage in 1815 at St George in the East. James is listed as a bachelor. While its not impossible that James and Mary had two children before marrying (two other different pairs of ancestors of mine didn't get married until No 3 was on the way, and one pair even claimed to be married when the other children were registered
) the fact that there is a marriage in 1811 in Stepney of a James Johnson and Mary Judge and that the signature of that James Johnson looks very similar to the one on Ann Johnson's 1841 marriage to Philip Pearce (although granted it could just as easily have been her brother whose signature looks quite like his father's too) has always meant we'd discounted the 1815 marriage.
But then looking at James Johnson's signature on the 1815 marriage, it looks very similar to the 1811 marriage entry and the 1841 witness signature. Also in 1828 a George Judge married at Stepney St Dunstan and one of the witnesses was a James Johnson whose signature looks even more like the 1815 groom. There are some very distinct letters in the signatures that suggest they could all be the same person.