Since when did Hawkins look like Kellaway?
 

I am always prepared to believe my research is wrong.


Everyone puts Jane Small as William Hawkins' wife, marriage 4 October 1787:


https://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bi...=successSource



This puzzled and worried me, as I had never found that marriage. This is why:



https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interacti...5_239737-00525

...and I suppose it's William Hawkins who is your relation, not Jane Small?!!

Yep. It does make rather a nonsense of Thrulines.

Admittedly, the vicar's habit of never mentioning mothers in the baptisms does make life more interesting, but you would think that some of my distant cousins would check.

I think Dorset record keeping is much worse than a lot of other counties. I wouldn't be surprised if we are related - I have ancestors from the Winterbornes! Any Bucks or Lakes in your tree?

No Bucks or Lakes that I know of, but my ancestors seem to have chosen villages where disasterous fires destroyed the records. And I so agree about the quality of the records. It is almost as bad as Surrey. I'm used to Norfolk, where a flea can't be born without the vicar grabbing and baptising it (and finding out both parents' names before he buries it.)

With transcriptions like the above you may never know.

I like that Vicar. I wish he'd traveled more - to counties I need.

It is a worry that no one else has bothered to find the original records. I hate transcriptions for this reason, although they are better than nothing - sometimes.

I had one of William Hawkins' daughters in law down as Susanna Stenning - on the basis of asking the vicar for parish record entries over forty years ago.

Everyone else has Stermy. Guess who hadn't checked :o :d:d

Oops. You have clearly learned a lesson and are now checking the actual images.

It's the old story: that what you learn when you are very young, you believe implicitly.

We were taught, firmly and forcefully, always to go back to the original. But sometimes I forget