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My first thought on seeing the name Levis and Rachel and Reuben was to look for Jewish registers, but I can see that all the registrations of major life events were in Church. With the dates involved that will mean searching through parish registers, which are probably not indexed. I'll take a look though.

I've found many old testament names for Levis children, but assumed this was in fashion back in the 18th and early 19th century (as well as their re-cycling of the same names over and over again).
Similarly, I've found many records for Levises with the CoE, various types of Methodist, Baptist, Quakers and other types of protestant dissenters, but for the Leicester/Lincolnshire Levises I have not ever found any Jewish (or Catholic) entries.
I've found Catholic Levises that came over from Ireland, and a few Jewish ones in London (1870-1890 immigration wave from the pale of settlement), but nothing that indicates these are related to the Levises that were already living in England in the 18th and 19th century.

There is a relatively sizable contingent of American Levises that descent from a Samuel Levis who emigrated 1680-ish to Pennsylvania (and these were quakers). Some of these descendants make the claim that they are related to the French 'de Levis' aristocratic family.
I match these American male-line Levis descendants through Y-DNA testing, even though I cannot trace back my own lineage to connect to their ancestors (my direct line has never emigrated to north American as far as I am aware). The Y-DNA haplogroup for these Levises is downstream of I-M253, which is not a Jewish haplogroup.
My personal estimation is that the name 'Levis' is more likely to come from a Danish farmer named 'Leif' or 'Leiv' than Jewish or aristocrat French ancestors.

Of course this doesn't relate directly to the Stanion Levises (until we can prove or disprove their link), but the name Levis is rare enough for me to believe they are very likely to be all related to each other.

Quote from: Annie65115 on Thursday 09 September 21 19:47 BST (UK)

Stanford's an unusual name and I think there was only one in this timeframe (although there were 2 more in subsequent generations).

William Levis (who married Elizabeth, Stanford's daughter) was from Billesdon. Where did they go? I can't see subsequent burials for William and Elizabeth. There's a baptism of a daughter Elizabeth in Narborough, then possibly a son in Houghton on the Hill, then nothing. Is there any record of a death for Elizabeth? Did Elizabeth and William have a daughter Ann, who could have accidentally been described as a daughter rather than a granddaughter in Stanford's will?

I can't see any baptisms for an Ann Levis in an appropriate timeframe who could have been an illegitimate daughter of Stanford.

Jane (Stanford's widow) also left a will and mentioned children Thomas (living in Huncote), Mary (a spinster), Ann Bradshaw (Ann married John Bradshaw of Enderby in 1775) and Jane Jarvis (Jane married John Jarvis in Narborough in 1784). As stated above, Elizabeth Levis isn't mentioned. Is this because she wasn't Jane's daughter? Or because she was no longer alive? Or had simply fallen out with her stepmother?!

Elizabeth was provided for in her father's will but not in Jane's. If she did die in that intervening time period, it narrows it down to 1778 - 1785.

Those are some very good questions!

I've had no luck with any Ann Levis either, and Elizabeth was dead by 1785 if my guess is correct (see below).
Here goes what I've come up with in my research (and using a lot of imagination I guess):
- A William Levis was discharged on 26 Jul 1773 from the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. Aged 35 born in Leicester, he served 18 years and 6 months with the 1st foot guards. This very neatly fits with William Levis baptised 21 May 1774 in Houghton-on-the-Hill, and could explain the relatively long period of no child birth by his wife Elisabeth after their first child Elisabeth in 1761.
- A William (farmer, abode Fleet Fen, d. 1789) and Elizabeth Levis (d. 1782) are buried in Gedney Hill. This is quite some ways from Houghton-on-the-Hill (last sighting when son William was baptised in 1774), but fits my family lore that a William and Elizabeth came from Leicestershire to the Fenlands.
- And here is the link to my verified earliest ancestor: A William Leavis, gardener born around 1774, is buried in 1850 in the Elm parish. On the certificate of his second marriage in 1838 he lists his father as William Leavis, farmer.

Note that there is at least one more Billesdon Levis sightings in the Fenlands around this time period:
- An Amos Levis (transcribed 'Levice') aged about 63, sojourner, dies 1761 in Sutton St James (Spalding). Considering how unusual his first name is, I believe this is the Amos Levis baptised 1703 in Billesdon, whose daughter Hannah was baptised in Billesdon in 1751. Note that Sutton St James is only a stone's throw from the Fleet Fen where William the farmer lived for the last 7+ years of his life.

after some more research this theory appears to gain more traction:

I believe that Elisabeth Levis baptised 1761 re-appears in 1788 in Doddington, Cambridgeshire where she marries James Byfield (a couple of months before her presumed father William dies in Gedney Hill). She signs with 'Leavis'. Subsequently, James Byfield dies and Elizabeth re-marries a Joseph Groom(e)(s) in 1789. The births of both their children appear in a non-conformist birth registry maintained by Dr. Williams Library, Redcross Street, London, where Elizabeth's father is named a 'William Lavis'. She dies in 1843 in Purl's Bridge (Ely Union registration district) as 'Elizabeth Groomes' age 83.

I've noted the marriage of Andrew and Eleanor before; one or both was from Derby, I can't work out which, though I suspect it was Andrew, as they seem to be in Desford subsequently. So I suspect that Elinor was part of the Desford Holyland clan - though just where she fits in, I don't know, a I can't see a suitable baptism for her. Why do you think Eleanor was quite young?

The Ancestry tree where I found her marriage show her having been baptised in 1722, married in 1733.

Stanford's an unusual name and I think there was only one in this timeframe (although there were 2 more in subsequent generations).

William Levis (who married Elizabeth, Stanford's daughter) was from Billesdon. Where did they go? I can't see subsequent burials for William and Elizabeth. There's a baptism of a daughter Elizabeth in Narborough, then possibly a son in Houghton on the Hill, then nothing. Is there any record of a death for Elizabeth? Did Elizabeth and William have a daughter Ann, who could have accidentally been described as a daughter rather than a granddaughter in Stanford's will?

I can't see any baptisms for an Ann Levis in an appropriate timeframe who could have been an illegitimate daughter of Stanford.

Jane (Stanford's widow) also left a will and mentioned children Thomas (living in Huncote), Mary (a spinster), Ann Bradshaw (Ann married John Bradshaw of Enderby in 1775) and Jane Jarvis (Jane married John Jarvis in Narborough in 1784). As stated above, Elizabeth Levis isn't mentioned. Is this because she wasn't Jane's daughter? Or because she was no longer alive? Or had simply fallen out with her stepmother?!

Elizabeth was provided for in her father's will but not in Jane's. If she did die in that intervening time period, it narrows it down to 1778 - 1785.

Those are some very good questions!

I've had no luck with any Ann Levis either, and Elizabeth was dead by 1785 if my guess is correct (see below).
Here goes what I've come up with in my research (and using a lot of imagination I guess):
- A William Levis was discharged on 26 Jul 1773 from the Royal Hospital in Chelsea. Aged 35 born in Leicester, he served 18 years and 6 months with the 1st foot guards. This very neatly fits with William Levis baptised 21 May 1774 in Houghton-on-the-Hill, and could explain the relatively long period of no child birth by his wife Elisabeth after their first child Elisabeth in 1761.
- A William (farmer, abode Fleet Fen, d. 1789) and Elizabeth Levis (d. 1782) are buried in Gedney Hill. This is quite some ways from Houghton-on-the-Hill (last sighting when son William was baptised in 1774), but fits my family lore that a William and Elizabeth came from Leicestershire to the Fenlands.
- And here is the link to my verified earliest ancestor: A William Leavis, gardener born around 1774, is buried in 1850 in the Elm parish. On the certificate of his second marriage in 1838 he lists his father as William Leavis, farmer.

Note that there is at least one more Billesdon Levis sightings in the Fenlands around this time period:
- An Amos Levis (transcribed 'Levice') aged about 63, sojourner, dies 1761 in Sutton St James (Spalding). Considering how unusual his first name is, I believe this is the Amos Levis baptised 1703 in Billesdon, whose daughter Hannah was baptised in Billesdon in 1751. Note that Sutton St James is only a stone's throw from the Fleet Fen where William the farmer lived for the last 7+ years of his life.

Hi,
I certainly see the problem!
With regard to the daughter Ann Levis, I wondered whether this might in fact be a mistake for Elizabeth.  But I do quite like your idea of an Ann being Stanford's illegitimate daughter - who then also could have married a Levis, of course.

Like you, I have found the wives seemingly mixed up: Elizabeth 1739 with Ann, then after wife Ann's probably burial, Mary in 1748 and Thomas in 1751 with mother Jane, But then two Anns in 1752 and 1755 with mother Ann, and Susannah, as you say, with an anonymous mother in 1762.
How can this be?
A mistake by the clerk who was writing in the register?  Lack of concentration - after all, the daughter was called Ann.  Perhaps he hadn't noted the wife's name but remembered that there once was an Ann?  But to do so twice? Hmm.

And could the daughter Ann Levis perhaps really be Elizabeth, the first-born?
She is not mentioned in the will of Jane the wife, although the other daughters are.  So is this daughter not hers?  Or already dead or provided for?

I have tried to approach this by looking at the Biggs family, but so far have got nowhere useful.
Were Ann and Jane sisters?  The best I can find at the moment is a will of a Thomas Biggs, a yeoman of Thurlaston, dated 1761, who has property in Huncote in the possession of Stanford Holyland.  He has a wife Elizabeth, but does not name his children (but as they are still minors, unlikely to be either of Stanford's wives.  A brother, perhaps?)

At the moment, it seems as if someone in Huncote/Narborough had a fixation with the name Ann!  But sadly, this would be very hard to either prove or disprove!

 

I don't think it's a mistake if it's mentioned on three separate occasions over the period of 20 years. Another alternative I can think of, is that the mother of Stanford's last three children is a certain Ann Levis, while he was still legally married to Jane Biggs (maybe Jane could not bear him any further children?). Perhaps calling Ann 'his daughter' in his will was the only socially acceptable way to provide for her?

I know this sounds unlikely, but it would help address the two open issues (the name of the mother of the last three children, as well as the extra Ann Levis appearing in Stanford's will).