6th May 1726 Bedfordshire marriage: Richard BROOKS and Elizabeth Benton

[Keith Sherwood]

Hi, Everyone,
You know how it is sometimes when you gaze at some of those Public Member Trees on Ancestry and you wonder where on earth is the hard evidence that allows those that construct the trees to link a family back to medieval times...
Well, I'd just like to try to fit together at least one piece of a chronological jigsaw by some kind person finding and identifying for me a significant 18thC marriage in the BROOKS family of Felmersham in Bedfordshire.
So I have a 6th May 1726 marriage between a Richard BROOKS (possibly from West Bromwich in Staffordshire) to an Elizabeth Benton.  Their first child was born on 14th August 1726, then baptised on 21st August at Felmersham, Bedfordshire.  So presumably Elizabeth was quite pregnant when she walked up the aisle of whatever church it was.  I imagine it was in a nearby parish, perhaps the one in which she lived prior to her marriage and meeting Richard.  There is no sign of this marriage in the Felmersham PR's themselves.
Thereafter there are generations of the BROOKS family in Felmersham until 1880, when their gt-gt-gt-grandson George and his wife and two very small sons upped and went to Rotherham to start a new life.
I would simply like to know the location of this 6th May 1726 marriage between Richard and Elizabeth, therefore...
Many thanks in advance,
Keith

[Keith Sherwood]

I have some apologies to make...
I have now had a proper look at the original pages of the Felmersham PR's which another kind Rootschatter supplied for me on a recent Bedfordshire thread I started the other day.  There is indeed a marriage for 6th May 1725 (not 1726 as I had been led to believe), and of course all the nonsense I wrote about the bride Elizabeth being heavily pregnant going up the aisle is therefore totally erroneous.
I just need to discover now where the knowledge came from that the bridegroom Richard hailed from West Bromwich. This marriage was preceded by Banns, but the details of these particular ones are unfortunately not present in these same PR's.
I'm very sorry if I've wasted anyone's valuable time!
Keith

[rosie99]

I have not followed this Richard Brooks forward but he is a possibility being born in nearby Pavenham

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V52Y-WJM
Richard Brooks
Christening 12 Jul 1699
Pavenham, Bedford
Father John Brooks

[Keith Sherwood]

Rosie,
Thanks very much for that suggestion, I'm rather floundering around at the moment with where this Richard Brooks came from.  Before 1726 there are next to no BROOKS baptisms in the Felmersham PR's or indeed earlier marriages, so the suggestion is that the male BROOKS line came into the parish from 1725 onwards from somewhere outside...
Keith

[rosie99]

John Brooks and his wife (Letis?) seem to be having several children in Pavenham according to familysearch.  It would make more sense than West Bromwich 

[Keith Sherwood]

Rosie,
I love that name Letis.  It has almost completely disappeared now as a female forename...
And yes, I'm pretty sure you're fairly close to the mark (or more precisely Richard!) with this individual from a neighbouring parish.  All those pieced together Public Trees on Ancestry with no primary sources to back up the links, sending one down false ancestral trails...
Keith

[rosie99]

The online trees probably could not find a birth for him in Bedfordshire as the records for that county were not well covered.  I have been stuck in Felmersham with my direct line, perhaps it is time I started looking at it again 

[Keith Sherwood]

As you probably already know, by visiting the excellent village website at www.felmersham.net  there's a very enthusiastic and good local historian on there who has published a couple of books about the history of the place.  What is the family in Felmersham that you have become rather stuck with there, or would you prefer to discuss this via PM?
Keith

[rosie99]

Hi Keith

Thank you. 

Like you I have recently discovered the Felmersham registers online, I just need to go through them on a rainy day to see if there is anything I have missed in the past.  I have loosely connected one person to my family in an adjoining parish but I really need to see the original registers at some point.

Rosie