After quite some time trying to trace back ancestors John Smith, Jane Detchon and George Carr pre 1800, I was delighted recently to find some key family history clues in the will of John Smith which I discovered only recently online in Durham records.
England, Durham, Diocese ...Original Wills, 1650-1857 DPRI/1/1822/S16
John Smith married Jane Detchon in 1766. Their daughter Jane Smith married George Carr in 1795 and the will does provide a clue to the fact they indeed did have another child (as c-side suggested as a possibility in a previous post) . I could find no record of the birth of another daughter in baptism records, and had almost given up until I found a Mary Kerr was mentioned together with the other three children in the grandfather’s will. I had no problem finding the birth/baptism records of the other three children, so assumed there were no other children. Mary was born after these three children. I think she was born at some time between 1802 to 1806 in Rothbury but I can not find any baptism record.
George Carr (John Smith’s son in law) is also mentioned but the will gives the surname as Kerr ( not Carr) so I assume the Carr and Kerr surname was probably interchangeable at that time. However I would very much like to trace further this George Carr (aka Kerr) and wonder if this is a clue to discovering more about him. A Thomas Butament is also mentioned. George Kerr and Thomas Butament are named as executors. I assume Thomas Butament is also a relative of John Smith but so far can not determine any family link. George Kerr is definitely his son in law.
If anyone has any suggestions how I can find more about this ancestor George Carr (Kerr), I should be very grateful indeed. I rather hoped that this new information might provide further clues but yet again am meeting the proverbial brick wall, despite discovering so much more quite unexpectedly from this recent find.
