Sanders Guyer (1705-1798) born Yarmouth, a shipwright, is in Woolwich by about 1730 for the birth of his son, Sanders Guyer (1730?-1800) by his first wife Elizabeth Wabel (b. about 1709 Holy Rood, married 1728 in Southampton). There are possibly two other children via this first wife. The younger Sanders was born in Woolwich in 1730. I am positing that A) Elizabeth died before 1742 and that she either died in childbirth giving birth to Elizabeth Guyer (later wife of Samuel Tyler). Then, the elder Sanders Guyer is noted as marrying a second time to this Mary Downley in Fareham in 1742 so B) it is possible that he named his firstborn daughter with Mary Downley "Elizabeth" after his departed wife Elizabeth Wabel So, what I was looking for was an Elizabeth Guyer, spinster, resident of St. Alphege, Greenwich, who would have been born in about the 1740-1747 timeframe and married in 1765 and the witness to the 1765 marriage of Samuel Tyler and Elizabeth Guyer is named Elizabeth Downley (?). I am seeing multiple Downley (& variants) women (one married to Saunders the elder) - - and one witnessing a younger Guywer woman's marriage, and Downey (& variants) is a rare surname in Kent and so the solid lead I did have was a marriage in Fareham of that Mary
to Saunders in 1745. But I am not finding Downey variants in Fareham, either. I did look closely at the witness name (magnified and also contrast enhanced) and it is definitely "D". The lower case "o" does look like an "e" or even an "a", and that letter toward the end is is either an undersized lower case "l" or an oversized lower case "e". So, Hampshire is where I need the help to see if I can find out who that witness Elizabeth Downey is and how she is related to Elizabeth Guyer. I suspect that all the variants in spelling might be the result of some West Country accents being phonetically represented. And so I guess I am also looking for phonetically similar variants in Hampshire.
