Dear Susie Q,
Well now, it's now Friday, the rain didn't materialise like what was promised, although she now says stay in bed Saturday because it's going to be somewhat persistent.
Now tghis very morning I am ambled over to St Andrews, and there are a quite a few graves there, mostly overgrown I'll be candid, and I couldn't find one for a Markham, worse, a lot of them have detoriated over the last 325 years, a lot are illegible, and the earliest I could find of any gravestone was 1809.
I spoke to a local boy who has an interest in this sort of thing and he says several problems, over the years, people were buried on top of other people, albeit a 100 years later, he says do your arithmeticv, if only 5 people a year die in a village in 100 years that would mean 500 burials, over 300 years, thats 1,500 burials.............................if it's more, say 12 people a year, well, again do your arithmetic, if you were to bury a relative in say 1890, what would you know about a burial in 1690 ?? and bear in mind St Andrews church in Earls Colne dates from the 8th century, so in 1200 plus years, lots of bodies in a relatively small area.
Susie, there is one more chance, I may be able to access parish records, but lets be aware, records weren't kept so meticuously as they are today, but I will of cvourse let you know what, and if I come up with anything, and even if it's a negative, I'll let you know.
Right, the sun is starting to go in, it'll be raining here within three hours, so I'm off to the library now.
Regards etc.,
Boblima
