From looking at some of the trees on ancestry, I take it that the "first known child... born in 1779" who you mention is Henry Cottrel, who was christened 1 Nov 1779 at Sidbury, Devon, parents Henry and Mary. FamilySearch has this christening in its parish register transcriptions but Findmypast's Devon records with images don't seem to cover Sidbury baptisms for this period unfortunately. FamilySearch also shows a "Robert Cavey Cotterel" baptised 12 Jan 1783 at Sidbury, parents Henry and Mary, and if only we could look at the image for that one we could see whether the middle name was Cavey or Carew! Or maybe Carey - there seem to be a few of those in Devon.
At Uffculme (for which FMP does have the images), there is a James, son of Henry and Ann Catterall baptised 17 Mar 1776 and a Charles, son of Henry and Mary Cotterell, baptised 5 Nov 1786. This may or may not be the same Henry and Mary as the parents of the Sidbury children.
So it would be helpful if you can tell us which of Henry and Mary's children is your direct ancestor so we don't follow the wrong line!
I should add that I have found that quite often when you see a lot of trees which all have the same name but nothing to prove it is correct, they have all been copied from each other and they all turn out to be wrong! I have also found that family stories often turn out to be wrong. If FamilySearch has a tree showing her name as Mary Carew with no evidence, then it is just another submitted tree which still needs to be confirmed by research.
|