Ezekiel has confirmed that, if possible, he would like to verify that William Mead and Mary Elizabeth Wynter Hemmings were the grandparents of Ezekiel Mead.
Personally, I do not look at user-provided family trees when researching. I instead utilise primary sources, preferably with images (if possible). In terms of the concrete birth, baptisms and burials available, I found the following:
There is no marriage between a William Mead and Mary Tomkins on 10th June 1811 in Eaton Bray, there is only one in Astwick, Bedfordshire on this date (Astwick being approx 27 miles from Eaton Bray, where the first Mead child, Mary Ann, was baptised in 1812).
Astwick marriage:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPSD-GHFZI cannot see any baptisms in Astwick, so I would say there is a good chance that this is the right couple, although difficult to confirm with complete confidence.
Perhaps supporting this marriage is this baptism:
Mary Tompkins, daughter of Thomas & Ann Tompkins, baptised on 10th October 1788 in Eaton Bray, which would match up with what Mary put on the census.
Back to William Mead (bap.1786), the only other baptism I can find to his parents, William & Mary, in Mursley is a daughter, Elizabeth, baptised on 22nd June 1784. It appears that she married Thomas Turvey in Mursley in 1802; a William Mead was one of the witnesses.
A William Mead and Mary Elizabeth Wynter Hemmings did marry on 8th January 1781 in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, by licence. William was age 24 and a clerk, and Mary was 19.
In the 1780s, there are these baptisms, which I believe to be children of this couple:
- Mary Anne Mead (Dec 1781) in Dunstable
- Thomas Winter Mead (Sep 1783) in Houghton Regis (mother's name mistranscribed as Mary Ann)
- Frances Mead (Aug 1785) in Houghton Regis
As you can see, this couple appear to have lived in Houghton Regis between Sep 1783 and Aug 1785 and the gap between Thomas Winter Mead's baptism and the baptism of Elizabeth Mead in Mursley in June 1784 seems too small to me.
Also, based on this:
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Register_of_the_Scholars_Admitted_Into/bSHOAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=thomas+winter+mead&pg=PA163&printsec=frontcoverIt looks like Thomas Winter Mead went to Merchant Taylor's School and then matriculated at Oxford, becoming Vicar of Great Staughton, so it is highly unlikely - based on the standards of his time - that he would be the brother of a carrier.
If I were you, I would discount these as the grandparents of Ezekiel.
Queenie
