Admitting defeat on some ancestors.

[Rena]

That may be the ancient origin of the surname Inkpen, at Inkpen in Berkshire. Although in the 1700s about 99% of them outside the honeypot capital London were in either Kent, Dorset or Sussex. William had only 2 children William and James, but his wife's dad was called James. William died in 1769 but was listed shortly before as a publican at a pub at St Peter In The East. William may have come from Dorset originally and moved to Oxford for work, or from SE England.

By gum!

You've got a bloodthirsty moniker !!!!

Combe Gibbet

In the vicinity of INKPEN:  Combe Gibbet is a macabre monument on the top of Gallows Down. The structure was erected in 1676 to hang the bodies of George Broomham and Dorothy Newman. Broomham

https://www.komoot.com/guide/1726138/attractions-around-inkpen

[coombs]

My William's wife was born 1737 but he himself may have been much older. Never say never as to finding out about his origins.

[coombs]

Often we keep digging and digging for more info on an ancestor especially if they died pre census and BMD era and had a common name. But i think you may have to realise you have hit a dead end, especially with a common name. Unless you by miracle was to find a poor law record, or a will it may be more realistic to admit defeat rather than keep trying and looking into any faint leads only to throw up nothing.

One example is my 6xgreat grandmother Elizabeth Newman who wed in London in 1774. Witnesses seemed to be regular witnesses to the marriage to Samuel Auber at St Dunstan Stepney. The marriage record said they were of Ratcliff but they usually lived in Shoreditch. Samuel died in 1827 but have not been able to find a burial for Eliz Auber (Obey/Obee, variant) nee Newman. I have looked for local wills and marriages of other Newman's in the area to see if she was a witness but nothing.

I think she is one ancestor I may be on a hiding to nothing with in regards to her origins due to the common name and the fact she lived in London, as she may not have even been born or baptised in London. Never say never but I think it is unlikely I will find out her family outside husband and children.

  So, with a common name, it may well get to the point where it might be impossible to trace further. But even an uncommon name, if that person was born in Ireland or the Americas where the survival of baptismal registers (or in the Americas case, in the wilds, or at sea, whether someone was baptised at all), it may be no actual record of that person's birth survives. Wills are always worth checking though, if you have some hint of a place or surname or surnames to go on. Some family history societies have made will beneficiaries indexes for certain counties.

This may be the case with my Sarah Coombs, later Bradford (Nee Unknown born c1791-died Feb 1851). She was supposed to have been married to coachman George Coombs (1790-1831) but no marriage has been found. The 1810 marriage in Axminster of Geo Coombs to Sarah Davy I think has been disproved, as Sarah Davey's signature was quite different to my Sarah's signatures 1835-1845 under her second husband's name of Bradford. Sarah Davey joined her lettering as well, and my Sarah Coombs/Bradford wrote each letter separately. My Sarah was in Marylebone, London (Middlesex county) in 1841, not born in county, and died just weeks prior to the 1851 census. It has all the hallmarks of it maybe being impossible to trace Sarah further, such as before her eldest son was born in 1812. She did witness the marriage of a William Smith to Anne Jenkins in Paddington in 1835, just a month after her eldest son Matthew G Coombs married.

The 1804 marriages of George Coombs to Sarah Knott in Sussex and Sarah Blackburn in Shadwell London were eliminated by me long ago.

I know where George was from, he was from Dorset originally. I found other records linking my George to the one born 1790 in Bincombe. A relative of his in Dorset left him a small amount of money in her will, saying he was a London coachman. Finding that itself was like winning the lottery.