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Hi Ron - good to hear from you. From what you say, your wife and I must clearly be related, as I'm descended from the oldest of Joseph Wildsmith's children with his wife Jane Norborne - Robert, baptised 16th April 1714 in Staveley, Derbyshire. He is my 5x Gt Grandfather.

I agree with you that the Jane Norborne baptised in Harthill seems a very good contender for Joseph's wife - and you'll have seen from my earlier posts what else I've found out about this line. But I'm afraid this is where my research has hit a brick wall - not helped by the very poor condition/incomplete nature of the Staveley Parish Records. I would love to be able to show that Joseph was a child of Robert Wildsmith and Ann - who had a lot of children in Staveley in the late 1600s - but Joseph's baptism is very elusive to track down!

So, no further progress to date on this line - but I'm ever hopeful that I'll make a breakthrough one of these days!  Anything further you can add to this line would be great

Hi Dizzifish - thank you - and well tracked down!

Seems to point to this Mary being Thomas's widow - and hence vindicating my view that the Thomas who was buried at Caunton in 1838 was not the chap who married Catherine Hibbert at Chesterfield in 1805.

It doesn't get me any closer to tracking down my Thomas - but it does suggest that a lot of on-line trees might need revising!

Thanks again

Apologies in advance for what has turned out to be quite a lengthy post – but I wonder if anyone with access to the Sutton-in-Ashfield St Mary Magdalene Parish Records could please verify the information I have found on the Nottinghamshire Family History Society (NFHS) Burial Parish Register CD, relating to this burial of Thomas Morley. Basically I would like confirmation that the date is indeed correct, and that Thomas’s age is 55yrs.

I want to try and verify this information because I am descended from Thomas and Catherine’s 5th son, Sampson Morley, with Thomas being my 3x great grandfather. I can find several possibilities for Thomas’s birth/baptism – but cannot be certain which is the correct one – so verifying these burial details would help me pin down his likely birth year a little more accurately. This would clearly be around 1777 if these burial details are correct.

My view is that this Thomas Morley is very likely the chap who married Catherine Hibbert at St Mary & All Saints in Chesterfield, Derbyshire on 12th May 1805. However, all of the (many) online trees I have found for this Thomas have his burial either at Caunton, Nottinghamshire in 1838, or in 1861 at various locations – Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Unfortunately I have not found any convincing evidence to support these 1838 or 1861 dates – whereas I believe there is strong evidence to support the 1832 date.

Briefly, the NFHS Baptism CD appears to indicate that this couple had a number of children – all baptised in Sutton-in-Ashfield:
James – 5th May 1806
John* - 18th July 1807
Thomas* - 6th March 1809
Allen – 30th December 1810
Eliza – 25th October 1812
Sampson* - 18th February 1815
Alfred* - 2nd January 1817
Catherine* - 2nd May 1819
Fanny* – 24th December 1820
Elizabeth* - 26th February 1826

For all of those marked with an asterisk, The parents are noted to be Thomas and Catherine, with Thomas’s profession being Framework Knitter. For those without an asterisk, the parents are given as Thos and Catherine, and no profession is given for Thos – but as these are all within the Sutton-in-Ashfield register – and as the dates all seem reasonable, I see no reason to not think these couples are one and the same.

Catherine (aged 57 – and not born in the County) then appears in the 1841 Census, at Reform St (?), Pingle, Sutton-in-Ashfield – living with her 15 year old daughter Elizabeth, and her 22 year old daughter Catherine, who is now married to Samuel Hardstaff. On the same Census page I also see her son, the 30 year old Allen Morley, with his wife and family. There is no sign of Thomas senior – which makes me think he has already died. Nor is there any mention of Thomas junior – but I believe that this is because he had been “Transportated for 10 years” in 1838, having been convicted of theft as detailed in the July 7th 1838 edition of the Nottingham and Newark Mercury – to be seen at Find My Past.

I believe Catherine also appears in the 1851 Census - under the name of Kitty Morley - a 66 year old widow and Pauper, living at 774 Pingle, Sutton-in-Ashfield – and giving her place of birth as Litton, Derbyshire. Ancestry gives details of a baptism of Katherine, daughter of John and Susannah Hibbert at Litton in Derbyshire on 4th January 1786 – so this seems to tie in.

The NFHS Burial CD then appears to give Catherine’s burial – at Sutton-in-Ashfield on 19th April 1858 – with Catherine’s age given as 73.

In summary, following their marriage in 1805, I believe that this family seems to have settled in Sutton-in-Ashfield – such that there is no good reason why Thomas senior would have been buried in Caunton or elsewhere.
 
As I said at the outset, the reason for this post is primarily to seek confirmation from the Sutton-in-Ashfield Parish Records of the details of Thomas’s burial in 1832 - but I would also be interested to hear any comments or observations that anyone has on the reasoning I have set out above.

Thanks in anticipation

Thanks for your reply Nottschick.

As you can see by the lengthy gap between your reply and today, I've been taking a bit of a break from family history, but am returning as part of a New Year's resolution - and in anticipation of new discoveries in the 1921 Census!

Anyway, on the James Barke front, I have finally sent off a query to the NFHS, so hopefully will get an answer to this problem in the next few weeks.

Thanks again to you, and the others who have commented and taken an interest in this matter.