18thC sources to supplement Registers

[panic]

I am wondering what other sources, apart from BMD & Registers can be used for people from 18thC Shropshire? (My query is at the end, but first some background)

I have subs to ancestry & FindMyPast so things like page scans of shropshire registers are great source.

I have got my tree to Peter Chilton & Mary Cadman marrying in 1772 in Little Wenlock, and surmising that the correct Peter Chilton is the one born in 1749 in Little Wenlock (still to find the correct Mary of proper age yet ), whose parents are John & Mary.

I believe this is John Chilton and Mary Garbet, because the witnesses at Peter & Mary's wedding were Richard Chilton & Thomas Garbet. The problem has been in looking for the siblings of Peter (1749). Peter was baptised Aug 1749, however on the same page there is a "Mary daughter of John Chilton and his wife Mary" baptised December 1749. So its probably safe to say that in Little Wenlock at that time there were two John & Mary Chilton.

So what other sources do people use to try and confirm who belongs to whom in such cases?

[Guy Etchells]

Quarter sessions, recusant rolls, dissenters lists, protestation returns, various tax returns (poll, hearth, window, land, stamp duty etc.) wills, court records (examinations, depositions, informations, prosecution briefs, petitions and pardons) army and navy records, newspapers, to name but a few.
The list goes on and on.

Cheers
Guy

[david64]

Of those Mr. Etchells mentions the most accessible are the quarter sessions (minor legal records.) A name index of these up to some time in the 1910s is available at Shropshire Archives. Wills for the area in question for yourself, I believe, are held by Lichfield Record Office, and will be online, I presume in a year or so.

It's also worth searching surnames of interest in the Shropshire Archives catalog:

http://search.shropshirehistory.org.uk/

I've found scores of documents here that have helped to glue together otherwise unconnectable families from parish registers.

[panic]

Thanks, will see what records Shropshire office have that can't get elsewhere

[bristolloggerheads]

Wills for Little Wenlock are at Hereford RO but I'm afraid I can't see any Chilton ones listed.

[panic]

thanks bristolloggerheads. They were coal miners and rented so not sure how much they had to pass on. The population of Little Wenlock was under 1000 at the time but does seem to be a few chilton families then.