Hi Charleston,
Taken the liberty of replying although your message is addressed to Kerry --and she IS on the ground there in Sussex and I am not, but I am stumped on my own research at the mo. and we all help each other in this forum and we do get results most of the time!!
You have the parents John Oliver and Elizabeth Vidler, are you sure on these?
There IS a marriage recorded for a John Oliver and Elizabeth Vidler recorded on the IGI (International Genealogical Index. This is online at Familysearch.com
This index was set up by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - The Mormon Church, because they baptise their ancestors postumously to ensure their eternal salvation). Please forgive me if you know all this, but the IGI is a good starting point. Its online, carried at record offices and many libraries and their own reading rooms at their churches and it costs you nothing to search. BUT it its NOT fully comprehensive and entries when they are submitted by members or copied from elsewhere can be wrong. There are also the Hugh Wallis Batches for virtually every county of England and Wales, these are grouped IGI records but they are patchy as regards to parishes. Many parishes and one or two counties declined to hand over their records for transcription to the Mormans because of their ethics being on the fringe of mainstream Christianity. So you need to double check ideally from the Parish register ..the primary historical source and other reliable indexes and transcriptions as well. This includes those painstakingly transcribed by the OPC - Online Parish Clerks. On the Sussex Online Parish Clerks website coverage is patchy. Some parishes are very well covered like Burwash, some not represented at all and for others submissions are made only for people of certain families that the contributor has an interest in. Sorry, Ticehurst aint in it! Another good source is the National Archives which you can search online and buy and download any copies you want, it even tells you where the records are stored. Good for wills, legal disputes, military rolls of honour and so much more.
You have membership to SFHG that gives you access to the baptismal register, the sussex marriage index and other good reliable sources. They are working on a burial index for Sussex but for now try Finmypast parish records where there is a burial index for East Sussex in the cords that the site absorbed from Familyhistoryonline, you can buy credits to view
You have ancestry.com. If your time is limited do your homework first before going to ESCRO in Lewes, its not the place to go and leave your family waiting outside while you just pop in..unless you want to just order some copies of records. You can spend hours in there trawling the records. You have to book these days in advance and tell them what you what to do there, the original registers are on microfiche. You can only take a pencil and sheets of paper in everything else you bring is placed in a locker. So you need to do a bit of prep.
In 1837 BMD registration came in but it was not strictly enforced for some years but makes the task of finding people a whole lot easier. Free BMD is online.
1841 was the first national census up to 1901 online - at Ancestry.co.uk and 1911 at Findmypast.com pay per view (these sites are licensed by the National Archives). Scan and print your most important returns and save in a designated image folder..you may eventually decide the subscription gets a bit much. You'll not get at your images if you save them on the site and then cancel your subscription. These sites are most useful for getting access to the census, other peoples trees and the BMD indexes, searching post Free BMD about 1920 is a murderous task if you have scant information and a common name. Did you watch 'Heir Hunters on the BBC!!
So before you go to ESCRO see what you can do from your own computer and dont forget Rootschat!!!!!! Kerry found my 4X's great grandfather when I couldnt. A trip to ESCRO without knowing his baptism was in the Battle register and not where I expected him to be would have been a probable 300mile round trip waste of time.
Now then John Oliver and Eliz. Vidler. The IGI gives a date as 29/9/1746 at Ticehurst, submitted by a member of the Mormon Church Karla Shelton.
She has a website but there is no mention of this union on her site. Neither does it appear in the Ticehurst, Hugh Wallis Batches. So check the Sussex Marriage index.
John Oliver possible parents Thomas and Martha bap at Warbleton. Their children
John 9/5/1725 m. Eliz Vidler...son Joseph 1753
James 10/9/1727
Martha 12/11/17?
Joseph 23/10/1737
Susannah 30/8/1741 1743
Did they move to Ticehurst?
By looking at the names it does look promising
Eliz. Vidler possibly from Eastbourne no early Vidlers in Ticehurst did they move there? Bap. Eastbourne 23/10/1727 parents Wm. and Sarah
Well see what you can do happy hunting, I hope that some of the above is useful even if you know about most of the things I've told you!!
M.Ann
