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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Somerset => England => Somerset Lookup Requests => Topic started by: LesleyAx on Thursday 21 February 13 15:43 GMT (UK)
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Does anyone have access to the full details of this marriage at walcot St Mary Chapel 28 march 1818?
Many thanks
Lesley
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Hi
Welcome back to rootschat
The marriage is on freereg http://www.freereg.org.uk/cgi/Search.pl
Bath, Somerset
Church Walcot - St Mary's Chapel
28 Mar 1818
William BRETT
Groom Parish St George Hanover Square Middlesex
Anne MERRICK
Notes Signed Ann.
FileNumber 17231
Rosie
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Thanks Rosie
do you know if there any way to see if parents or witnesses or addresses are recorded?
- or anything else at all?
Lesley
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do you know if there any way to see if parents or witnesses or addresses are recorded?
- or anything else at all?
Hi Lesley
The FreeREG entries for marriages from the St Mary's Chapel in Walcot are copied from an earlier transcript kept at Bath RO. The original record will have had the signatures of two witnesses for each event but these were not included in the transcript and so are not on FreeREG at present. Parents were hardly ever included in marriage registers at that time and addresses were normally limited to the parish of residence. Anything out of the ordinary would usually have been included in the old transcript and so be on FreeREG. Almost certainly, the only useful data missing from the FreeREG entry is the names of the witnesses.
We hope eventually to redo our files of this nature and add the missing details, but at the moment priority goes to registers where we have no coverage at all so it may be some time before we have your witnesses. I believe the Bath RO, or the SHC, will send you a photocopy of the entry for a small fee. Be aware that the witnesses are not always relatives of the couple. They can be friends or even just parish officals. Also there is only the signatures and those can pretty hard to decipher.
David Hartley
FreeREG area assistant for Bath
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Thank you so much for explaining that.
I will contact Bath RO and see if I can get them to send me a photo of the entry... It is a long shot but names of witnesses might help....
I am trying to find where my ancestor William Brett came from - married to an Ann (maiden name and origins unknown).
My problem is that we have got back to a William Brett who appears with his wife Ann and starts his family in Windsor area in 1821 - we have lots of info on him from his first appearance there at that time and he variously works as a schoolmaster, secretary to a bank, a public writer and is on every local committee and later retires as a 'gentleman'. He has close and long lasting associations with the Keene family and with a man called John Nash - becoming guardian to his son at one point. William's son (who dies soon after his father) leaves an estate of some acres with tenants which is sold and his sisters become annuitants. Ages at death means William must have been born in about 1777 and Ann in 1796. I figure from their ages that they must have likely married between between about 1812 and 1821 when their first child is born. More likely nearer the 1821 end. And I figure William probably came from at least a middle class family or was a younger son of a more wealthy family?? They might well have been the sort of family who holidayed in Bath....
In all the documentation we have amassed there is no clue to Ann's maiden name or to where William or Ann were born or their parentage.
I know a lot of men left the forces in late 1810s and started new lives.... So now I'm trying to look at all the William and Ann's who married in that period and at all William Bretts in the forces up to 1820ish to see if anything at all matches up.
This marriage seems a possible candidate.... A young man from London and a romance and marriage in Bath might fit.... But I need to find out some more....
I will ask Bath RO for a photo of the entry and try to decipher any witnesses in hopes they are family or known associates and I will try and trace back this William in London and this Ann Merrick and see if any of the details fit together....
It is just fantastic that so much info - and help - is available online - and that there is even more to come.
Many thanks
Lesley