My 4 x great grandmother was Elizabeth Beckwith, born on 16 June 1805 in Fort St George, Madras (as it then was) and baptised there on 29 June 1805. Her parents are shown as John Beckworth and Elizabeth.
I have followed Elizabeth through her long and eventful life via her marriage to the feckless Joseph Bodycote, who eventually abandoned her and her children, to her eventual death in Leicester Workhouse in 1884. The marriage entry from 1 May 1820 is beautifully written, but gives no details of the parents of either party.
There is a suggestion that little Elizabeth’s mother, also Elizabeth, died in 1808, possibly giving birth to a son Benjamin, and that John re-married in very short order to Catherine Gibbs (nee Gopp?), who then gave birth to a son Thomas John Beckwith, who was born at Fort St George in May 1809 and died in Salt Lake City in October 1902.
There is lots on line about Thomas's family, and a suggestion that Thomas and Elizabeth’s father was Lt John Beckwith of the 79th Regiment of Foot (Liverpool Volunteers) born in or near Liverpool in c 1760. However, this regiment was apparently disbanded in 1784, which would not explain his presence at Fort St George in the last decade of the eighteenth and first decade of the nineteenth centuries.
I’m getting very bogged down trying to get another generation back – can anyone shine me a light?
Thank you.