Poole, Dorset - Links between Tilsed and Boynes Families???

[kjthistory]

My 4g-grandfather John Tilsed b1785 had - amongst others - two sisters named Mary and Aphra/Afhra.

Mary Tilsed b1793 was a witness to the marriage of John King and Mary Boynes on 13th Sep 1810.
Aphra Tilsed b1799 was a witness to the marriage of Thomas Williams and Eliza Boynes on 28th Feb 1819.

Mary Boynes b1790 and Eliza Boynes b1799 were also sisters, their parents being Thomas Boynes and Sarah née Wills. At both marriages, the second witness was the girls' maternal uncle, Thomas Wills.

I currently have no idea whatsoever why the Tilsed girls would have been witnesses for the Boynes girls - in my experience witnesses are often siblings, or married to siblings, of the bridal couple, and I can't find any relationships at all between the families at this time. (There are a couple of marriages linking the families in 1830 and 1836).

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here?

[Milliepede]

Relatives often were witnesses but equally they could be random unrelated persons.  I believe there were even "professional witnesses" who were probably unknown to all!

[kjthistory]

Good suggestions, but unrelated witnesses - in this place, at this time - are much less common than related ones. Also I've done a lot of work on Poole families and I'm reasonably familiar with the names of the regular witnesses there.

But the main point is that the fishing / seafaring / piloting families in Poole had so many interconnections* that it seems far more likely to me that there is a connection somewhere and I just haven't found it yet.

*For example Mary Boynes died in 1829 and in 1830 the widowed John King married Martha née Jenkins, widow of James Tilsed - James being brother to the John, Mary and Aphra mentioned in my post. And in 1836 Martha's son by James Tilsed, also James Tilsed, married Sarah Stone, daughter of Susannah Boynes - who was sister to the Eliza and Mary mentioned in my post.

(To clarify - I don't believe these connections are relevant here, just examples of how tightly woven these families were.)