Turner/Emery

[Dozey_Joy]

Hi Rob

That's alright. At least I know I wasn't missing something obvious. When I get chance I'll check the register for St Chads Stafford but I don't know when I'll get to the records office again.

Joy

[Old-Bonez]

Thanks for the offer to still look it up Joy however it is in the wrong parish and the wrong timeframe. It was only the names that seemed to fit which is why I wrote it down.

If only I could find a list of Lawyers of that time frame in Staffordshire I might just bump into potter Johns fathers true identity.

Rob

[Old-Bonez]

Thank you Crystal for your PM and the transcriptions of the marriage licenses for our known 3 marriages in Brewood.

John Turners marriage license simply confirms what we already knew however the marriage of Henry is a totally different story because I presumed he was a brother... obviously he is not.

Henry Turner-Transcription of The Oath Made By Henry Turner

20 December 1757

On this day appeared personally before me Henry Turner of the Parish of Castle Church in the County of Stafford Gentleman aged forty years and a widower and intends to marry Prudence Sutton of the Parish of St Mary Stafford aged thirty years and a widow

Signed Henry Turner before Joseph Dickenson’’

This reveals firstly that he was older than I expected. 40 meaning a birthdate abt 1717. It also reveals he was a widower and Prudence a widow.

5 years later he is a witness to Johns sisters wedding. Apparently this usually indicates a father or brother.

Lets do some math. If he was indeed the father to John & Sarah than John would have been born when Henry was 19 and Sarah would have been when he was 21.

One catch... who is Walter who is 4 years older than John that is mentioned on the Turner Tomb... I had always presumed him to be Johns brother? Lets leave him out for the time being.

Lets go back to Castle Church. Crystal has searched 1735 - 1755 and came up blank... we now have a date to go on. There may be a christening date for Henry Turner in 1717.

If Henry is their father then we have a possible wedding date based on the oldest child's birth.  John was born 1738 and if Walter is a full brother he was born 1734.

If Henry is the father it also answers a few other things.

Regards, Rob
 

[Dozey_Joy]

Rob

Just to clear up a point. Of the three marriages you mention only one took place in Brewood - that of John and Ann. The other two took place at St Mary's in Stafford. It gets confusing when all the churches have the same name!

It looks like the Turners may have a connection to Stafford and it's probably also worth trying to find out more about Henry.

Joy

[Old-Bonez]

Hi Joy

Yes that used to throw me. Almost every time I had to look up the church website to get the proper name. The Brewood Church is "St Mary & St Chad"

Sometimes I find it referred to as simply "St Marys" other times the full name and then to confuse things further it is also referred to as "St Chads" which is where I got it wrong when asking for that wrong information.

To answer your question.. Yes all three were married in the same church. Brewood!

Henry's second wife "Prudence Sutton" has me intrigued. I've been searching for information on her but can't find a Sutton family in Brewood at that time. The book "Turners of Lane End speaks of an unknown Mrs Turner who ran a Ladies School in Meir House (Longton). Her identity is unknown and could just be Prudence who would have been 70 when the advertisement was in the Staffordshire Advertiser newspaper.

Did you receive my PM with the details of how to enter the family tree to double check information on the Turners? I find myself there constantly trying to keep my head right. So please don't think it isn't confusing.

There is a lot of information I have received that isn't correct. So many sources have obtained the incorrect data and repeated it.

Rob

[Old-Bonez]

Joy...  Again I must apologise to you.

After replying to your question last night I slept on it and have been checking the facts this morning.

On looking at things I find that the site Family Search was the first to report happenings in Brewood as "St Marys. Stafford".

Not knowing Staffordshire or English protocol where so many things are abbreviated I had accepted that this was simply an accepted abbreviation for "St Mary & St Chad. Staffordshire". The fact that Stafford actually had a church called St Mary and another called St Chad never occurred to me until recently when I sent you on that wrong search.

On re reading your post I now realise that both Sarah Turner and Henry Turner were married in St Marys in Stafford and not Brewood as I had read it.

Thank you Joy for highlighting my error. Stupid errors like this can make such a difference when trying to find the full story. 

Rob

[crystal lady]

Hi Joy and Rob

Just posting the results of my search last Saturday - apologies for delay but it has been a bad week.  Anyway, I wasn't sure where to start so I checked the baptisms for Brewood that was mentioned to Joy from 1801 - 1831 and nothing that relates to your Turner family as I could see, so we can rule that one out.  There are other Turner families there and plenty of baptisms form them but I could not see a link with yours.  However, Rob, do you want me to email those to you as 'not related', you then have all the info if a link with them appears at a later date and it will save us going back again - I won't post them on here to avoid confusion.  I have found this useful with my research - I copy all the names down down as I'm looking even if they don't appear to have any relevance at this stage and they come in useful for cross checking later on - especially if someone gives you a name and date with no other info, you can then rule it out?

Castle Church and St Chad's, Stafford both had a book of transcriptions on the shelf which I checked and came up with the following (not sure if you have these already):

Castle Church:
1656/7 4 Apr, Mary daughter of John & Mary turner - baptism

St Chads, Stafford:
1713 2 Feb, Johannes Turner & Sara Nichols - marriage
1796 6 Jan, Mary daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth Turner - born & baptised
1796 8 Jan, Mary daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth Turner (above) - infant burial
1797 26 Aug, Elizabeth daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth Turner - baptism (born 12 Aug 1797)
1800 1 Jan, Rebecca daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth Turner - baptism
1802 14 Jan, Ann daughter of Thomas & Elizabeth - baptism

As no other info is given I'm not sure if they 'belong' to you or not but copied the details just in case - hope I'm not adding to the confusion!! I did not have time to check all of the transcriptions but could not see baptisms for William b 1762 or Henry b 1717.

Sadly that was all I managed in the few hours that were available but I have my list for next time! Rob, let me know if you want the 'not connected names' emailing and I'll send them over.

I also arranged for the Marriage Licence applications to be photocopied and they are now in the 'photocopying queue' and I will be contacted when they are ready for collection.  Rob - can you email me your address so I can then post them out to you?

Sorry nothing positive this time but at least eliminated some areas.

[Old-Bonez]

Thanks Crystal for your weekend search. Even though it hasn't revealed any thing new it has certainly ruled out other things.

It appears that nothing else can be extracted from Brewood and your search of Castle Church has revealed a Turner which is about 3 generations earlier than my current earliest found Turner so I can't prove them to be related as there is nothing in between. Good for my general unknown list though.

St Chads has revealed the Johannes & Sarah 1713 that I sent Joy on the wrong trail for. I still feel I have plenty of egg on face for confusing the three churches ... Unfortunately the Thomas and Elizabeth information is all around 1800 which is too late in time to be brothers or parents of potter John. Again they will be stored in a "not related" list just in case they should pop up as cousins or similar.

The only other place left to search is St Mary's Stafford where both Henry and Sarah were married. It is the only obvious place left to look for the baptisms of John & Sarah .... possibly Walter could also be there (1731 - 1741 plus some more in case they were late)

Henry was born 1717 & as a widower married Prudence Sutton in 1757 in the church. He was from Castle Church parish and Crystals search of that parish revealed no baptisms so possibly no more children or they simply settled elsewhere. It also failed to find Henry's own Baptism.

If Henry is indeed potter Johns father then the only other place to search for Henry & Prudence after their marriage is in the Stoke on Trent area. They may have followed John after his success in potting and Prudence could be the unknown Mrs Turner of Meir house who ran the ladies school which would have made her 70 at the time. Pam found many baptisms of both sons children in St. John`s Church Lane End (Longton). It could be a fine place to start to look for children of Henry & Prudence as well as their deaths.

This leave me almost out of hunches or places to possibly look. If nothing more is found I feel that we might as well wind this search down and take a well earned rest.... Ahhhhhhh!

[Old-Bonez]

Thanks for the PM Joy & yes I also find this Turner family intriguing especially since they are my ancestors.

I agree that obtaining both Henry's and his wifes wills will probably solve this but I don't know how to arrange it from here in Sydney especially since I don't have dates of passing. Sure I'd pick up the tab if it could be arranged.

Well a few weeks have passed and I've been quietly mulling things over. I was looking at Sarah Turners children and noticed that all the earlier ones were names of known family members and then "Mary Ann" struck me as a name of a family member that was unknown to me ... could this be her mothers name I'm thinking (sure the last born children have new names).

Potter Johns son William also has a daughter named Mary Ann (Pam was talking about her in an earlier message in this discussion).

So the question now being put is do we agree that there is a strong chance that Mary Ann is the name of Henrys first wife and mother to potter John and Sarah?

So with this I went searching in "Family Search" and came up almost blank when looking for a Henry Turner born abt 1717. I came up totally blank when searching for a marriage of Henry and Ann in a time frame that would fit. Everything was suggesting Henry was born 1707

So now I have to slip in another "if" ... From the turner tomb there is mention of Walter Turner which I had presumed was a brother but for this to be (according to his wedding licence) Henry would have only just been 17 if not 16 when he fathered Walter. I'm thinking not very likely.... Now here is the if ... what if Henry really was 50 and so he could marry he had to say 40 to not to upset the brides family.  Now Walter fits in and now I can research what "Family search" has found.

The only thing relating to Stafford that might fit in is possible parents to Henry. We have a Marriage of John Turner to Sarah Taylor 18th Nov 1703 Wombourn, Stafford ... we have to look for their children & one called Henry in the Wombourn parish records .. A good indicator is if the marriage was by licence.

I'll post a look up request for the others that showed up in the respective places of Roots Chat.

Thanks for reading my rambling but it goes to show I'm really clutching at straws.

Rob