Thomas Heywood 1779 Winkleigh Devon - 1826 Crayford Kent

[Lily M]

Good luck at the library.  Hope it's worth the two hours of driving in the rain.

[KiwiHugh]

Well as the hopefully new Prime Minister says, I shall be "relentlessly positive ". This just means a LOT of deleting BUT opens up a new avenue of looking. Perhaps the real Thomas will provide my smoking gun  Any way the rain meant the market was slow and was able to get some affordable avocados despite being so late in the morning.

[KiwiHugh]

Well looks like I am about to wear out the delete button on my tree. I kept on reading Smith as Sarah  and read Ann as and. Shall have to get back to the "relatives" and cut them loose. How embarrassing

[Lily M]

Don't do anything too hasty.  Perhaps you should find the alternative first.

You mentioned that your guess for William's father would be another William.  Does that mean you've now ruled out the Joseph and Cordelia you found earlier?

[KiwiHugh]

They are suddenly back in the running. But for them to be correct then the death notice and his grave for Joseph has to be wrong for his age. This guy was a teacher. Or he was not baptised as a baby. Or the Joseph and Cornelia of Diss  Norfolk are a red herring and there were two couples  of the same name knocking about at the same time.

[KiwiHugh]

Fathers name was mostly based on Thomas of Plymouth determination to name a son William backed up by William naming his eldest William This was always shaky as Arrabellas Father was John and that did not even get a look in in naming their children

[Lily M]

Not sure which Joseph you mean.  Do you mean the one with the 1810 will?

How old did it say he was?  Cornelia's Joseph was born 1752.

Oh, I see, this does look wrong.  Their William was born 1750 and John was born 1754.  But Cornelia referred to John as being the eldest son.  Thomas at 1757 is good for being the youngest.  But something's wrong.

[KiwiHugh]

There may have been two couples. Cornelia was a bit more fashionable back then.

[KiwiHugh]

The real stumbling block for me was the discrepancy between the baptism for Joseph and his age at death. Heck it got chiselled into a headstone and it is 10 years out from memory.