Previous married name or maiden name in OPR entry?

[Ssxy]

Some years ago at ESRO Lewes in East Sussex I viewed the original OPR entry of the marriage of my 4th great grandparents William Eldridge and Ann Walter at Brede, Sussex 20 Sep 1788. It clearly showed that Ann was a widow.

I have just found a tree on IGI that has appended the baptism of an Ann Walter. If that information is correct, it suggests that the OPR entry is showing Ann's maiden name rather than the surname of her late husband.

Is it possible that the 1788 OPR entry shows Ann's maiden name rather than her previous married name?

Confusingly an Australian death certificate of daughter Ann Maria (Whiteman) gives Ann's surname as Pearce. Needless to say I have yet to find any evidence of any earlier marriage.

Ssxy.

NB There are to this day some trees on the internet that have cut and pasted from my now defunct FTM site that call her Ann Widow Walter or Ann Walter Widow!

[groom]

I have just found a tree on IGI that has appended the baptism of an Ann Walter. If that information is correct, it suggests that the OPR entry is showing Ann's maiden name rather than the surname of her late husband.

Does that tree say where the information came from? It could be that they saw a transcript of the Eldridge/Walter marriage and assumed that Ann was a spinster. If you saw the original and that stated she was a widow, Walter would have been her married name and not her maiden name. I would trust the parish record rather than an IGI tree.

Confusingly an Australian death certificate of daughter Ann Maria (Whiteman) gives Ann's surname as Pearce.

Could Pearce be Ann's maiden name?

[jonw65]

Sussex Marriage Index has Ann Walter as a widow, of the parish.
William Eldridge was of Icklesham
By banns, 20 Sep 1788, Brede

[groom]

Jon - is there a previous Pearce/Walter marriage?

[jonw65]

Hi
I haven't found one so far!
Don't know how long she had been widowed of course. There are at least  five baptisms in Icklesham after William and Ann's marriage in Brede.
John

[Ssxy]

Thanks for your responses. It was not finding Ann's earlier marriage that made me wonder at all about the surname on the OPR, but my instincts concur with those of groom.

I agree that Pearce could have been the maiden name, albeit the person registering the Australian death was a grandchild and may not have known her great grandmother's maiden name who had died 47 years earlier.

'Tis a puzzle. Let me know if you turn up a marriage jonw65!

Ssxy.