Francis Bell born Scotland ca 1660-1665

[joboy]

I should add my interest in Francis Bell.
It was my late wife's interest really and the information and I found and recorded as much as I could find from whatever source for her right down to her mother who was an Australian and a direct descendant of Francis the Scotchman (sic).
Joe
PS .. wish I could back that far with my own line which fizzles out around 1735. 

[thebells]

Thanks for your help Joboy. I have found the original sources to most of your info except the bit about Elizabeth being a minor and pregnant when wed. Do you know where this came from?

[joboy]

Sadly I do not .......... I do remember her name was 'Trish' and she supplied me with practically all the Bell information in spreadsheet form by individual pages describing by date,event,alphabetically,by parents and by other names.
As you can imagine it is a quite large amount of information.
Noting your user name 'The Bells' I imagine that your interest would go further than Francis and Elizabeth and if this is so I would be most pleased if you would like to have it I could post it on if I could have your email address which you could do via a PM.
Joe Twitchin in Sydney

[pompeylad]

I just found this thread about Francis Bell & Elizabeth Speed who are ancestors of mine. Regarding Elizabeth being a minor and pregnant when wed, the parish register makes no mention of either. I suspect that the pregnant comment is based on the fact that the son William was baptised in June 1693, four months after the marriage. I've no idea where the source of Elizabeth's minority comes from, since she was baptised in Jun 1668 and would be age 24 at marriage, as has been pointed out. I'd be interested in the source of the Scottish records for Francis' birth/baptism as I can't find him in the records on scotlandspeople.

[Xue]

Just found this thread now.

Francis Bell is my 8 times Great Grandfather. Grateful if anyone, now or in the future, comes up with anything other than the word 'scotsman' on the marriage record - because that's as far as I have got with him!

Thanks

[Xue]

Still rooting around the records as you do when a bee gets in your wee bonnet ...

What if he was not born in Scotland? There are no matching entries in probable years and indeed the name Francis seems very uncommon.

There are about 13 possible records in England though. What if he was born in England but the family were either travelling at the time or moved back to Scotland when he was very young.

So long ago and such patchy records but it's one possibility I can think of if none of us can find him in Scotland ...

I think they would still count him as a Scotsman for the marriage records if he sounded like a Scotsman - and he himself may not have wanted to admit being born in England!