Hi
My Palfrey ancestors are buried at Llanbadarn Fawr, so I feel compelled to join in.
There's another Mary Palfrey that is a better age to be the wife of Thomas Rowlands, born in the late 1830s/early 1840s in that area, but I don't know if she's the right one.
I haven't found this Mary Palfrey in any parish records, but she is named in three wills on the National Library of Wales website:
- her uncle's: Richard Palfrey, of Llanbister, dated 1741. He names two daughters of his sister-in-law, Hester/Ester Palfrey: Mary and Hester, and mentions his brother John Palfrey.
- her grandmother's: Mary Palfrey, a widow, of Llanbister, dated 1761. She names four daughters of her daughter Hester/Esther: Mary, Hester, Anne and Elizabeth Palfrey. Her executor is her son-in-law, John Palfrey.
- her father's: John Phalfrey, of Llanbister, dated 1767. He names his four daughters: Mary Phalfrey, Ester James, Anne Phalfrey and Elizabeth Phalfrey.
John Palfrey/Phalfrey married Hester/Ester Palfrey in 1738.
So this Mary had two uncles called Richard Palfrey -- her mother's brother and her father's brother. (This is confirmed by other wills.) The Richard Palfrey who died in 1776, when Mrs Mary Rowlands is named, could be her mother's brother.
This Mary Palfrey seems to be the right age and living in the right area to be Thomas Rowlands' wife. The only thing that doesn't fit is that her father didn't use her married name in his will, which was written in 1767.
The lack of baptismal records for people of Thomas Rowlands' wife's generation means there were probably a lot more Mary Palfreys that we don't know about.
I'll be interested to hear what you find out. Good luck!
