Looking through the parish register it seems the rector did occasionally add extra information - like the spate of deaths in 1735 due to small pox, or whereabouts they were from.
In 1727 there were three principal roads out of the parish, beginning at Little Wenlock or Huntington; the short Huntington Lane (fn. 97) linked the two places. (fn. 98) Of the three the only one still used as a highway in 1980, Spout Lane, ran west from Little Wenlock to Shrewsbury; it formed the parish boundary south of Wrekin wood and was mentioned in 1232. (fn. 99) By the 1320S another of the three ran south from Little Wenlock to Buildwas bridge (fn. 1) and thence to Much Wenlock; known as Buildwas Lane in 1980, it was then only a track. The third road ran north-west from Huntington to Wellington, by way of the Hatch. It was superseded in the 19th century (fn. 2) by the road from Little Wenlock to Wellington, which in 1727 had been only a cartway as it left the parish.
From "A History of the County of Shropshire" on
www.british-history.co.ukSo the rector does seems to have stated that the family of John and Mary Chilton lived out off one of the main roads into Little Wenlock. My current theory is that the rector found himself with two families of John & Mary Chilton.
In the Middle Ages the only centres of population were Little Wenlock, the manorial and ecclesiastical centre, and Huntington, always a smaller place. Eight inhabitants were recorded in 1086. (fn. 26) By the 1320s there were 42 tenants (fn. 27) but in 1540 only 24; (fn. 28) in both periods undertenants seem to have gone unrecorded. In 1642 the protestation was taken by all 82 men in the parish who were over 18. In 1660 there were 147 poll-tax payers, 31 of them at Huntington, (fn. 29) and 174 adult inhabitants were returned in 1676. (fn. 30) In the 18th century workers' cottages were built in brick in the industrial parts of the parish. The population, 980 in 1801, fell to 941 by 1811, (fn. 31) perhaps because of a reduction of coal mining in the parish. (fn. 32) The opening of the Lawley ironworks in 1822 (fn. 33) and the expansion of coal mining in neighbouring parishes (fn. 34) caused Little Wenlock's population to rise to 1,091 by 1841, when there were 202 inhabited houses. (fn. 35) There was a gradual decline 1841-61. A sharp drop (988 to 783) 1861-71 was probably due to the closure of Lawley ironworks. (fn. 36) Further industrial closures in neighbouring parishes (fn. 37) and agricultural depression combined to cause large-scale emigration from the parish between 1871 and 1891, when the population fell to 420.
With a population below a thousand it should be fairly easy to distinguish families by listing parents names at the birth, and we are probably talking about around twenty families in the 18thC so having two with identical parental names might be a problem.
From the register John & Mary Chilton had children baptised in Mar 1732, May 1734, Dec 1736, Oct 1739, Apr 1742, Apr 1747, Aug 1749
and John & Mary of the Spout had children baptised in Mar 1748, Dec 1749, Oct 1751, Dec 1755
There are baptisms in Jul 1759, Mar 1765 where the Spout isn't mentioned, but could belong to the SPOUT John and Mary, though as the Dec 1736 baptism was John son of John and Mary Chilton, its possible he married a Mary!
The Little Wenlock parish did do marriages, looking at the register, yet there are no John Chilton marrying Mary whatever! There are at surrounding parishes though.
