Trying to find an ancestor - hitting the brick wall

[k8muse]

Hello,
Could anyone help with an ancestor that I cannot seem to find other information about her parents etc o? I only have the birth of two children (1 with unknown father and the other known), and her marriage.

Sarah Plivey (Sutton Veny, Wiltshire b.~1738). I think there may be other variations on her surname Plevy being one)

Husband - Francis Mead/Meade (both spellings seem to be common) b 1734 (Hindon, St Knoyle, Wiltshire)
Son - Joseph Exon baptised 1759 Jan 7
Daughter - Rachel Mead/Meade 1761 Oct 11

[QueenoftheWest]

Welome to RootsChat!

It's not often I can find such a conclusive answer for a query, but I believe I have in this case!

Sarah was a widow when she married Francis in 1760, although this is annoyingly not mentioned on either the marriage licence or the marriage entry in the parish register. On the marriage licence, she states that she is 33 years old, giving her an estimated birth year of 1727.

Sarah married a man called James Plivey in 1749 in Stepney, London, but he sadly died only a year later and they do not appear to have had any children.

She was born in Sutton Veny some time before 1732, when she was baptised along with 5 of her siblings. She was the daughter of Richard Collier and his wife, Sarah (formerly Exton, which is presumably the inspiration behind Joseph's middle name).

Her father wrote a will in 1759 and he refers several times to his daughter "Sarah Plivey."

Queenie 

[k8muse]

Hello,
Wow that's amazing.  Thank you for your speedy and informative reply.  May I ask where you found the documentation for Sarah?  I have another person in my tree also looking for answer to Sarah!

Thank you so very much.

Kate

[QueenoftheWest]

May I ask where you found the documentation for Sarah?

I am so glad I was able to help.

The first document I found was the marriage licence, a transcript of which is available to view on FindMyPast (a family history subscription site). This provided an estimated age at marriage of 33, which suggested that she may have been (although not necessarily) married before. The fact that she married by licence suggested that she or the groom were more "well-off", as forgoing the traditional banns cost more money. Also, she signed her name, showing that she had a level of literacy; these were little clues as to her background.

As I mentioned above, neither the marriage licence nor the parish register entry mentioned her marital status, so there was no proof she was a spinster. Also - as I am sure you discovered - Plivey is a very unusual surname, and I could not find any other Plivey in the Sutton Veney area. This was further evidence that this may not have been her maiden name, unless she came from outside the area.

I then did a general search for a marriage between a Sarah and a man named Pilvey, and this is when I found the 1750 marriage between a Sarah Collier and a James Pilvey in Stepney, London. The original entry in the parish register can be viewed on Ancestry (shortened to Anc*). I couldn't tell you why she ended up so far from home; I have 18th-century male ancestors from Wiltshire who travelled all the way to London (for apprenticeships), but not female ones.

I then found James' 1750 burial record, which can also be viewed on Anc*.

Now I had a maiden name of Collier, I went back to Sutton Veney to see if there was a Sarah Collier born in the right time period, and that is when I found the daughter of Richard and Sarah. Her baptism entry (along with her siblings') can also be seen on Anc*.

Richard and Sarah's 1716 marriage licence (available to view on FindMyPast) provided Sarah's maiden name of Exton, which matched the middle name of her daughter Sarah's illegitimate son Joseph. I suppose there is a possibility that Exton was in fact the surname of the child's father, but it would be a quite a big coincidence.

The strongest proof came in the form of Richard's will (available to view on Anc*), which named Sarah as a Plivey at the time it was written in 1759. From this, we know that Sarah was still a Plivey in 1759, despite James' dying almost a decade earlier.

The Exton family seems to have been a fairly wealthy one, as evidenced by this impressive monument in the Sutton Veney churchyard:
https://www.highfieldfamily.co.uk/showmedia.php?mediaID=5&medialinkID=9

I realise I have written rather a lot, but I just love researching!

Queenie 

[k8muse]

Thanks so much.  I love researching as well. It's like a Nancy Drew mystery ...putting all the clues together! lol

I looked into your previous suggestions and eventually found a baptismal record on the Wiltshire OPC website that has Joseph Exon's father listed on the parish records so that was a find! He is recorded as 'base born'.

However, like you, I am wondering why or how she ended up in London, then back to Sutton Veny - had Joseph, then got married the next year and had a daughter!! Busy woman!


Thank you so so much for all your research.  You have given me some good information to go on the hunt again!

K8

[mckha489]

I would look at her siblings. She might have gone to help a sister with her family.
(I have one of those in my family, who went from Staffordshire to London. A bit later than yours. 1780 ish but still a long way.)

[k8muse]

Thanks for the advice.  I’m still digging away.

[LizzieL]

Other people mentioned in Richard Collier's will apart from Sarah
Daughters: Susannah Collier, Grace Collier, Elizabeth Snelgrove, Joan Butler
Grandson: John Laing? (not sure of surname there is a mark on the page). he gets £5 when he attains age of 13, for an apprenticeship.
Will written 1759, proved 1760.

[LizzieL]

Elizabeth Collier married Roger Snelgrove at SV on 16 Dec 1741.
Jane not Joan Collier married Benjamin Butler at SV on 12 Dec 1747 - but I think that's her.

So that accounts for a few of the people in the mass baptism

Both Roger Snelgrove and Benjamin Butler were of Longbridge Deveril