thank you so much for all this help, i live in merseyside by liverpool, never been to kent in my life, its a bit of a journey, but im hopefully coming down next summer, so i need to get my research sorted out as im such a muddle head lol
i ve been going over to cork and waterford, well all over through my great great grandfater stephen pilcher moving from ripple kent when her joined the navy, he married over there and is buried in dungarvan waterford, i visit his grave each year as theres no family left over there, 4 of his children moved to usa and canada, im in contact with 2 family members there
im also in contact with stephen pilcher his son born in corks wifes family ( my great nan kate pilcher) i visit them each time i go
one last thing thats eluding me, elizabeth harnett 1772 daughter of peter harnett 1742 married james arnold 1770 of dover, i ve been led to believe that the james arnold family were reasonably well off, i was just wondering how she would have come to marry stephen pilcher, who was baptised stephen pilcher petley 1797 as his mother mary petley was unmarried and it says on his baptism record that he was base born, i ve tried looking into bastardy bonds but st mary the virgin eastry where he was bapt dont go back that far, so i have no idea who his father was, someone did say to me to see if there were any pichers from the same parish as mary petley and there was one the same age as her called thomas pilcher born the same year as her 1778, but no marriage as far as i can see, though there is a marriage for mary petley in ripple to a william kingsford, that was elizabeth arnolds nans maiden name
rambling now lol, anyway stephen pilcher petley except for bapt was always known as stephen pilcher, on marriage, census s and death records and he was afarmer, gardener agriculturist etc on census records, was just wondering about the maybe class difference
but thaks again for all your help, i ve revised that line of my family tree now
cathie