Help required please on original records

[carolp]

Hi, Can you advise me on how I can access original records. For many years now, a few researchers of the surname Gorringe have sadly come up against brick walls. The information gathered has been from the County records office in Lewes, extracted from the bishops transcripts.

We have a Sarah Harmer as marrying a William Gorringe in Hollington, Hastings in 1816. In all censuses, Sarah states she was born in hastings, but if you look for a Sarah Harmer as being born in 1798, there is no entries, but there is a Sarah Harman, born in All Saints, Hastings, in 1798, parents, William and Ann. Now I appreciate, that there could have been an error in the writting of the surname, but would like to know how I can 100% be sure of what her surname was when she married, or even when she was born. If my memory serves me right, when she married William Gorringe, there was the mark of a cross on the "certificate", so perhaps, when the vicar wrote her name in the register, she didn't realise he had made a mistake, because she couldn't read!

Any advice will be gratefully received. Thanks, Carol

[Ruskie]

It's highly likely that this is your Sarah as the surnames are so similar.
Some thoughts:
check for siblings with either spelling with same parents
check for families of both spellings on the censuses
check for Sarah Harman to see if you can find possible marriage/census/death for her. If not, this adds weight to Sarah Harman/Harmer being one and the same.
Others will probably have more suggestions for you to follow up. 

[Redroger]

The short answer is that you can't be sure, but following the suggestions made by Ruskie, you can put together a strong conjecture making it likely on the balance of probability that she is the right person.