Thank you Colin.
The Maidstone burial is for a serjeant in General Pawlet's Regiment of marines. If this is a Kent man, then it is actually the only candidate death for David b. 1693. I can account for every other David Nairn born in Kent, so if the serjeant is not my man then he belongs to a family completely unknown to me. I am trying to trace the Regiment to see if I can find anything to definitely connect the serjeant to David of the will.
I have looked at children of John and Jane Wood in Dover and Cranbrook (index searches only):
- between 1728 and 1745 at firstly St James in Dover, then St Mary.
- between 1733 and 1750 at Cranbrook
The only marriages I can find that might fit these families are:
John Wood and Jane Smith 21 Jan 1727 at Canterbury;
John Wood and Jane Collins 8 Apr 1729 at Cranbrook;
John Wood and Jane Couchman 28 Sep 1731 at Cranbrook.
All are a little too early for David's daughter, impossible if she is the 1723 birth.
Elizabeth Fellows' will mentions 16 members of the Nairn family. They are actually her husband's relatives, not hers. Her husband's sister Sarah Fellows(s) is the mother of David Nairn.
The other Nairn(e)s mentioned in the will are:
niece Hester Nairne widow of late nephew Edward Nairne, and their children Edward Greathead Nairne and Mary Nairne [Edward Nairne (1692? - 1748), wheelwright), his 2nd wife Hester Desbrough (1708?-1755), E.G. Nairne (1726-1806), instrument maker and optician, Mary Dawson Nairne (1728-1794), all four left wills];
nephew Richard Nairne and Elizabeth his wife [Richard Nairne (1697-1748), distiller of Chatham, and his second wife Elizabeth Bodjam(d. 1786), both left wills];
late nephew George Nairne, his widow Sarah, and their children Edward, Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary and Ann [George Nairne (1696-1747), wig maker of Sandwich, wife Sarah Walraven (1699-1789). Sarah Walraven and daughters Sarah and Mary all left interconnected wills].
