When the records don't exist....
 

John Couzens, bachelor married Elizabeth Pulling spinster in St Marys Portsea 3 March 1812. Both otp and both made their marks.
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/reco...2F00026956%2F1

John had been in Portsmouth since at least 1808 (aged 21), working as a sawyer in the dockyard.

According to censuses, John was born in Bere, Dorset. Now, he is probably the twin baptised in 1790: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...e9&pId=1832066


However, there was a serious fire in 1788. The parish registers only start then and there are gaps in the bishop transcripts.



Just about every tree on Ancestry shows John having a previous wife, Jane Bellringer: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...59&pId=4832340


This John was of Blandford Forum when he married as a bachelor 15 March 1808. And he could write.


This appears to be John and Jane in Blandford in 1841: https://search.findmypast.co.uk/reco...1%2F0002323343


Of course, that John and Jane could be brother and sister, but it seems unlikely that a writer loses the skill so quickly.


The Ancestry trees give John's parents as Thomas Couzens and Elizabeth Haine, married in Blandford Forum. I cannot see any way I can prove or disprove this. Does anyone have any bright ideas on this? So far as I can tell, the Bere Regis BTs are not available online as images. (John's sons were John, Joseph, Richard, George and William)

This, by the way, is the marriage of Thomas Cosons (per his sig) and Elizabeth Hain:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...72&pId=2100107

Which John's sons were John, Joseph, etc, please, Phoenix, the one who married Elizabeth or the one who married Jane?

Anyway, whichever couple had those sons, I would look to see if the other couple were having children baptised at the same time as those sons.

There's also this John Cozens from Blandford who is a little younger then the other two:

1871:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...8e&pId=5849985

And 1861:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...rn&pId=8324435

Marriage 1817:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageview...041&pId=728825

Note a witness is the more unusually named Stephen Cozens.

Looking quickly, I could only see your John in 1861 when he was recorded as older than I was expecting. What other ages do you have for him?

I thought they were the names of the children of John who moved to Portsmouth area.

Sorry, "my" John in Portsea had a large family. And he was born in the late 1780s or the early 1790s.

The John from Blandford Forum appears to have been a good ten or even twenty years older. This is the death of Jane:
COZENS, JANE 77
GRO Reference: 1851 M Quarter in THE BLANDFORD UNION Volume 08
Iff I am right, she would be old at marriage, and I have found no baptisms.

What about Sarah? I thought she was more likely to be an unmarried sister.

"My" John said he was 21 when he entered the dockyard at Portsmouth in 1808.
When he was superannuated 27 June 1833 he said he was 42 (which does fit exactly with bp in Sept 1790)
The age of 80 at death in August 1867 is of course unreliable.
In 1851, his age looks like 61 but he gives a birth place of Portsea!
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/reco...1%2F0006388516

This is probably Sarah:
COZENS, SARAH 74 GRO Reference: 1841 S Quarter in THE BLANDFORD UNION Volume 08