I have been mitching for the last few weeks, and need to catch up with the rest of the class. To get myself orientated, I attach a summary of the main points. Any crying errors or omissions, please correct and help me.
1a. Bev originally gave us a line of descent. This now seems to be Marp’s line and we seem to have have two separate threads. Since my surname crops up in both, I’m not giving up yet.
1b. We start with a bit of Regency hanky-panky, somewhat more advanced than would have been acceptable to the late Georgette Heyer. This amounts to the relationship between Joseph Brentnale and an assumed Ms Cresswell.
1c. There is a possible suspect here, if we stay in the Denby area: Joseph Brentnall, son of Joseph Brentnall and Ann [Palmer], christened at Denby on 4 September 1799. That might leave us looking for the unfortunate, betrayed Ms Cresswell. There is, incidentally, no male Brentnall married at Denby in a suitable timescale.
1d. Their natural child is Joseph Cresswell, born about 1821.
1e. Then we are looking for the next generation.
• There is the christening at Ripley, 11 January 1846, of the son of Joseph and Mary Ann Cresswell.
• There is another Joseph Cresswell, parents Joseph and Ellen, christened at Denby on 23 May 1848.
• There is a third (and triplicated in familysearch.org with incorrect dates) Joseph Cresswell, parents George and Sarah, christened at Denby on 6 August 1848.
1f. The records for Ripley and Denby seem to be complete and pretty reliable. FreeBMD throws up a handful of Joseph Cresswells born in Derbyshire in that timeframe:
• Mar 1845: Chesterfield (vol. 19, page 459)
• Jun 1845: Belper (19, 454)
• Sep 1845: Basford (15, 435)
• Mar 1846: Belper (19, 467)
• Jun 1847: Basford (15, 45[79]): I recall offering a “postem” on this entry, suggesting—as I recall—that 79 was the correct page number.
• Jun 1848: Belper (19, 470)
• Mar 1849: Belper (19, 4__)
• Dec 1849: Belper (19, 389)
1g. However, Marp says that her Joseph was born in 1848 (mother unknown) in Ripley and married a Sarah Ann Hall on 23 March 1873 in Ripley. Joseph was widowed and then married Harriet Whysall (daughter of Abraham and Ann Whysall) on 28 April 1881 in Ripley parish church.
1h. Joseph Cresswell marries Sarah Brightmore, daughter of Charles Brightmore, at Codnor-and-Loscoe on 7 March 1852. The register helpfully adds that the groom was 30 and the bride 28.
2a. Things got complicated when Bev accepted the 1861 Census to suggest another descent:
• James Cresswell, aged 46, brickmaker, is registered as living at Ripley.
• His wife is Sarah, aged 47.
• They have three children:
• James, aged 15, coalminer; Francis, aged 11, coalminer; and Hannah, aged 9.
2b. This seems to be the Hannah Cresswell whose birth is registered in the Belper District (vol 7b page 311), for the second (June) quarter of 1852. We believe there to be at least two siblings: James (born about 1846) and Francis (born about 1850)
2c. I have unresolved problems with that because of the link to the Whysall family in Aston (see the obituary in Hannah's prayer-book). I am struggling to see the link through to Mary Cresswell, born 1 June 1844, in my direct line. Obviously I was up a gum-tree here.
2d. We have a christening of a James Cresswell, son of Francis Cresswell and Mary, at Denby on 21 April 1816 (and notice the replication of names between the generations). Since the 1861 Census was taken on 7 April, it is possible that James would just be 46 on that day.
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