Havers, Suffolk, England

[PNHAVERS]

Hello all.
I have found a William Havers marrying a Mary Debenham in 1723 in Haverhill.  The source is 'Boyd's marriage Index, England,  1538 - 1850.
But when I spoke to some kind person at the 'Family History (Haverhill) Group',   she informed me that "she had checked their transcriptions and could not see this marriage at all"?!  There were other Havers marriages in their Parish lists however.

How could this be? 
I am prepared for a possible answer that will make me look silly lol!   An "ah ... I hadn't thought of that ..... I suppose that's obvious"  reply will then follow from me lol.

Paul

[Ruskie]

I am sure I am the blind leading the blind, but a Google search tells me that Haverhill PRs are at the SRO Bury St Edmunds. They may be elsewhere as well. The SRO might be able to help you, though there might be a cost involved to search their records.

I don’t know what the coverage is like on freereg but have you checked there?

Added: not related to Nigel by any chance are you? 

[PNHAVERS]

Thank you Ruskie.
Nigel havers?   Lol,  no, we could not find a link in with that 'minor' branch I seem to remember!  Lol

My branch are farmworkers, and theirs are only Judges and famous actors!

Thank you for your help.  I understood from the Haverhill Society that they have all those records
 at Bury copied though, so I cannot see what I would gain going to see them?
Maybe the Boyd's record is from a non-conformist source,  and would not appear on the Church of England Parish records?
Paul

[Ruskie]

I misunderstood Paul. I thought you had found the marriage on Boyds, and were chasing up the parish record in order to view it (presumably in the hope it contained more information).

[PNHAVERS]

Sorry Ruskie,
I'm really poor at communication.  You are right.  On my 'Find My Past' website, while searching for Havers births/deaths/marriages etc, there is a record for that marriage that comes up in the lists.  It says the source is Boyds.   
Now, I know this sounds daft, but if it was 1733 instead of 1723, things would suddenly make a lot more sense!  So I wondered if I could 'cross reference' that marriage info anywhere else to check if Boyd had simply mis-transcribed one digit in the date?? (I know it's a long shot).
Hence I rang the Haverhill branch of the Family History Group to search through their Parish Record copies of all things Haverhill.  After searching their data, they said there is no record of that marriage in their Parish records.
So I was wondering ......   where did Boyd get that marriage from?  If not from Church of England records? 

[Ruskie]

I see. 

I agree that checking that date is a good idea. Would it be worth contacting the SRO for a search by another pair of eyes, in case the Family History Group missed the entry for whatever reason?

If you look at the dates these churches were founded you can eliminate some:
https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SFK/Haverhill
I suppose you would then look for where the surviving records of marriages are held and coverage. For example, it seems FindMyPast have Quaker marriages (though you would need to investigate coverage).

As Haverhill spans Suffolk/Essex borders I don't know if that makes a difference in your search.

Do the years of birth of William and Mary's children indicate that they were more likely to have married in 1733 rather than 1723?

General Info:
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Suffolk_Church_Records

[PNHAVERS]

Hello Ruskie,
Once again, thank you.
There's lots there for me to get my teeth into.
And yes, a date of 1733 rather than 1723 would fit with a Mary Debenham from nearby Newport (Essex) bapt 12 Feb 1712/13.
Plus it would fit a William I'm looking at bapt in Great Waltham (Essex)1711.
Plus ....  it would give me a possible William and Mary Havers starting a family in Westhall (Suffolk) in 1734!!!
Too much to hope for you're probably thinking lol lol
Kind regards,  Paul

[Ruskie]

I see your logic Paul. 

I’m surprised you haven’t had any proper help with this query - I’m sure there must be someone who can point you in the right direction.

[gobbitt]

Hello Paul

Boyd's index appears to have omitted the marriage of William Hawes and Mary Debenham at Bardwell in 1723, perhaps wrongly transcribing both the bridegroom's surname and the location to create the spurious Haverhill entry.

Percival Boyd (1868-1955) began his work in the 1920s, taking data from transcripts available at that time (not necessarily published). As noted in A List of Parishes in Boyd's Marriage Index (Society of Genealogists, 1974, p. iv), "no attempt was made to search the original sources - copies were used always. ... Some errors and omissions probably have been made by Mr. Boyd's staff and by the compilers of the materials that he used."

Like the FamilySearch Research Wiki, that booklet gives Boyd's index a coverage of 1538-1837 for marriages at Bardwell. Those after 1650 can now be found in the IGI and in the Suffolk Family History Society's Suffolk Marriage Index, confirming the name of William Hawes.

Images of some (fewer than half) the original Suffolk volumes of pages typed from Boyd's index slips are accessible at the Internet Archive, with file names ranging from boydsmarriageind19boyd (Men 1676-1700 A-K) to boydsmarriageind39boyd (Women 1801-1880s [but mostly pre-1837] A-K).

Women 1701-1725 A-K are in boydsmarriageind25boyd, which includes Mary Debenham's wedding with William "Havers" at "Haverhill" in 1723 (page 156) and, for example, Susan Green's with William Herbert at Bardwell in 1720 (page 238) but apparently no Debenham-Hawes marriage.

David