[Merry]

The baptism you mention is for your William, son of Richard and Ellen, along with the settlement document.

I've just looked further at the family recorded as John and Elizabeth Walker with a son called William bap in Wigan in 1821 and living at Wallgate. The good news may be that though this child's entry is transcribed as Walker, I have now found the image of the original entry and it looks like either Walker or Walket. This could just be a slip of the pen, but their other children seem to be baptised as Walket or Walklet and other variations.

Then there is this burial:

William Walklett b abt 1820 bur 3 Jul 1830 Wigan which might be the same child, though the burial it says he is the child of Elizabeth Walklett with no mention of a father (should be John). I've looked to see if there were two William Walkletts baptised around the same time, one legitimate and the other illegitimate, but I can't find a second child. Of course the name is ripe for mistranscription, as we have already seen!

The next problem is, that even if we exclude William Walken bap 1821 we still have more than one William Walker born around 1817 on the census records:



1841 William Walker aged 25 living at Hindley. He seems to possible have an older wife (Ann aged 35) and two children, John 7 and William 2. He is a cotton spinner.

1851 There are two William Walkers. One is aged 26, wife Jane, two children julia 4 and Elizabeth 2, living at Parr. He is an iron moulder b Wigan. The second William Walker looks more like he could be the chap who is later with Mary Lee. He is aged only 28 on this census, a miner b Wigan. He is single and living in Wigan.

1861 Iron moulder William and his wife Jane and family have moved to Liverpool. The other William on this census is the one with Mary Lee in New Accrington aged 44, so if he is the same person as was living in Wigan in 1851 his age is nearer to what we want here, but we don't know which age (if either) are correct.

1871 At the moment nothing for this census.

1881 There is a widower, Wm Walker aged 63 living as a lodger in Clayton le Moors. B Wigan, occupation Rag dealer.

So, clearly there should be more entries for the various Williams as I've not even stepped into the dodgy transcriptions/bad spellings territory at all yet. I'm wondering if it would have been better to try searching harder for a marriage for the William who is with Mary Barrett/Lee, as that would prove things one way or another.

I don't like it when people don't seem to want to be eliminated properly!