Happy New Year, everyone.
I haven't put this in lookup requests as it's not technically a lookup - I'm just interested in other people's opinions about a family I'm descended from.
My ancestor John WELLER was born in the Sandhurst area in about 1805, apparently to a Thomas and an Elizabeth (I have found a corresponding baptism in Hawkhurst, a neighbouring parish). According to the tree here (
http://family-tree-russell.co.uk/TB.htm), John was one of six children born between 1787 and 1809.
However...I'm a bit suspicious about this as the first three children (all girls) were baptised as nonconformists (as far as I can tell, in Sandhurst), and there's a suspicious eight-year gap between the last of these three and the first of the other three...who were
not baptised as non-conformists. To me, this looks a bit like someone's combined two separate families. Plus, in 1796 (right in the middle of that eight-year gap) a Thomas Weller who was a nonconformist was buried at Rye (in Sussex but only a few miles down the road.
So, it looks like there may be two separate Thomas and Elizabeth Wellers. However, there are problems:
I can only find a marriage in the right area (on FindMyPast) for one couple, Thomas Weller and Elizabeth MAYNARD, in Sandhurst on 13 June 1788.
2. The Thomas who died in 1796 was born in 1769, meaning that if he was the father of the three girls, Elizabeth, Katharine and Abigail, he was pretty young - only 18 (not impossible, but in my experience young even for those days).
Is there anything I might have overlooked?
Thanks
Martin
