How to trace the forbears of William JACKSON (c. 1748-1818) WELNEY

[tjack]

William was born in 1748 and baptised the same year. At 33 years he married Mary SAY on 30 December 1781 in Welney. He died in 1818 and was buried on 8 June 1818 in Welney aged 70.   Mary SAY was born in 1761, died in 1828 in Welney and was buried there on 14 December 1828  aged 67. She and William JACKSON had the following children:
William JACKSON (c. 1783-1825), John JACKSON (c. 1785-1818),  James JACKSON (c. 1787-bef1861), Samuel JACKSON (c. 1790-1790), Ann JACKSON (c. 1791-1793), Samuel JACKSON (c. 1793-1868), Thomas JACKSON (c. 1797-1823), Joseph JACKSON (c. 1801-1802)
1)HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT ESTABLISHING WHO HIS PARENTS WERE? e.g. a birth certificate. Any advice on where to begin welcome. 

[rosie99]

William was born in 1748 and baptised the same year.

What information does the baptism give about his parents

[tjack]

Thanks for that request. Another family member 'passed on' the info I have but I feel sure we have no actual certificate of baptism to work from so it's where to begin. Any ideas welcome. Clearly, Welney in Norfolk is the location and my hunch is that certain roads lead to Littleport but as yet it cannot be proven!

[amondg]

The Welney parish records  are at the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich, email if they will do a search

since you know the date of baptism.

They are prompt to reply

[Ruskie]

I am on my ipad at the moment so takes longer to search, cut and paste to give you the links, but there is good coverage for Norfolk on Familysearch and freereg. I have had some good finds on Norfolk transcription Archive http://doun.org/transcriptions/

Coverage varies on each site.

Added: there is no birth certificate as such at that time. You may find the baptism in the parish records and sometimes the birth date and other information is included if you are lucky.

[tjack]

Very kind of you 'amondg' and 'Ruskie' to feed back to me with that information.                       Happily I report that Welney St.Marys have recently forwarded to me the run down on ALL Jacksons they have on their records. From Ruskie's comment, yes, it would seem there's really nothing to go on Re. Birth Certificate and the Welney record of WILLIAM'S Baptism is very vague.
His Marriage to MARY SAY is also on their records together with names of two witnesses. 
Methinks that I will still pursue matters with the Norfolk Record Office/Archive Records at least to 'exhaust' the line of enquiry. One never knows....I might get lucky somehow!!
Lastly and Thanks to the 'Littleport Society' I've been furnished with literally hundreds of Jacksons (which includes records of all WILLIAM & MARY'S children) and yet nothing concrete there to establish who his parents were. e.g Welney people or Littleport people. 
Thanks again.  tjack