William Dod

[Colinaffleck]

Hello Merry
BTW, I've never known anyone who spelled it Merry. Unique.
Those two, Philip and his son Samuel, which you just posted. Those dates would seem to be correct. It would make them, at their deaths, 82 and 74 respectively which is not too shabby. Curiously, they seem to have similar life spans to ourselves.
I have been poring over the Dod stuff for a few days now and, and to be honest, I am stuck. And confused by the sheer number of Dod's and dates. I can't get past Philips father William. His birth in Nov 1733 Tilston seems the only one that more or less meets the criteria. If correct, his father was also a William Dod and we do know that one “William Senior Dod” d. 12 Sept 1773 at Tilston. So unless I can find a better father for Philip than this William, I guess I'll stick with him. However, you raised a good point regarding Philips mother. When she and William married (18 Nov 1765) this Mary Lewis would have been only 15 years old.(b. 16 Apr 1750, parents Thomas and Jane Lewis of and at Malpas.) Now, that's not impossible but it does seem darned young, especially when he husband would have been about 32. Unfortunately, no other Mary's seem to be in a more reasonable age range, so there's me stuck.

I have a separate question for you, if I may. I am primarily using Family Search, supplemented with bits and pieces I pull off the Web. In one of your earlier posts you mentioned fmp which I took to be Find My Past. So I went and signed up and maybe I'll get something there. Are there other sites you would suggest mining?
Regards Merry.
Colin

[Merry]

And confused by the sheer number of Dod's and dates. I can't get past Philips father William. His birth in Nov 1733 Tilston seems the only one that more or less meets the criteria. If correct, his father was also a William Dod and we do know that one “William Senior Dod” d. 12 Sept 1773 at Tilston. So unless I can find a better father for Philip than this William,

But as I said before (post #18), that child seems to have died as a toddler, so I would be extremely dubious about choosing him as your ancestor.

Findmypast has images of the parish registers for many Cheshire parishes which often give more info than you will find on Family Search. I use that site and ancestry. I think you may be able to get a short-term free sub to these sites (remember to cancel your sub before the date they will start collecting money if you don't want to pay). Click the links at the top of the forum to findmypast or ancestry to learn more.

My name isn't really Merry! That's just an abbreviation of the first forum name I had years ago. I now think of it as short for Merry Christmas!

You didn't give me the extra two names for potential children of Wm.

[Colinaffleck]

Hey Merry

Sorry to hear your name is not Merry. I thought it kind of neat. Anyway, you'll always be Merry to me.

In addition to those names of the children of William and Mary Dod of Bickerton you posted (#18), the extras I had were Mary (3 Mar 1776) and Elizabeth (28 Mar 1773) both baptised at Harthill and both with a William and Mary Dod as parents. However, you mentioned that this Elizabeth was from another Dod family, which I now know you got from the fmp. This makes some sense as it conflicted with the birth of a James Dod (25 Feb 1773). Given that, I suppose Mary (1776) too could have come from the same second family of Dod's from Burwardsley.


Regarding Mary Dod, now, if I understand this properly, Mary Dod (Lewis) was the one who died in 1777. Mary Dod (Wright) who died in 1789 was the second wife (m.1778) of William Dod of Bickerton as were both these wives. Does this mean Joseph Dod (b. 30 Dec 1781) and Elizabeth Dod (b. 12 Dec 1779) were still "our" Williams children but with this second Mary? I suppose it must. Actually, I should not be surprised. Williams son Philip also married twice and it took me weeks to figure that one out.


And as for "our" William, assuming the one born in 1733 at Tilston and the one who died in 1735 are one and the same, and the records you accessed suggest that to be so, then I am again stuck. The only other possible William Dod birth at Tilston is one on 21 Apr 1745 with the father listed as Charles Dod. I say the only other possible because it would have made him about 20 in 1765 for the first marriage to Mary Lewis. Two other Tilston born William Dod's would have been 16 and 17 years old and so, I think too young.

What is your opinion of this William (1745, son of Charles) of Tilston being "our " William Dod who married the two Mary's, Merry?

[Merry]

I've looked at that 1775 baptism and I think Mary is another child of your Wm and his first wife. That means we need to find a burial for the Mary b 1771.

I just looked at the parish registers for Harthill and Mary baptised Aug 1771 was buried the same October (6th).

What is your opinion of this William (1745, son of Charles) of Tilston being "our " William Dod who married the two Mary's, Merry?

I could accept his age being a long way out at burial as people often seem to have aged rather quickly once they got to the point they might like to brag about being past three score years and ten!

However, as Tilston we have William Dod, son of Charles baptised 21 Apr 1745 and then a burial 27 Mar1754 for Wm Dod, son of Charles, so I don't think that can be the right William either.

I don't know how good the coverage is for online records for Cheshire, but along with missing or untranscribed parish records you also have to contend with parents who didn't baptise their children or vicars who forgot to record the baptism, plus the possibility the Dods came from further away etc etc.

[Colinaffleck]

Ok, now I'm getting depressed. Correct me if I'm wrong here Merry, but the William Dodd whom we seek, he the father of Philip, was not then born in Tilston (unless he got married when he was 16 or 17) and could, therefore, have been just about any William Dod born between about 1730 and 1750. Just a quick search tells me there are no obvious ones close by to Malpas but several hundred farther out. Any ideas, because I have none.

[Merry]

If this were my tree I would now stop trying to go back further on this line for the moment and either concentrate on investigating what happened to the various people already added to the tree, or just move to a different line. All lines on my tree end with a brick wall at some point and the further back you go the more walls there will be as you create more branches. The further back you go the more important it is to investigate the people surrounding your direct line as otherwise it's very easy to make mistakes. There are many people here (myself included) who have investigated the trees of whole villages in their search for answers.

Don't see this brick wall as depressing, but an opportunity to move on! If you come back to this problem later you may find a way to get back further as more records become available.

[Merry]

Having said the above, I thought I'd take a quick look at The National Archives catalogue re the Dods. I thought I'd done this already, but apparently not! If you search for Dod Bickerton there are 26 matches (I haven't tried Dodd Bickerton yet) and some of them look very interesting. I would be attempting to create a tree for the people mentioned to see if they connect to your family in any way. (I've only looked at the results for a few seconds, but it does look like a possible avenue for further research.)

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

[Colinaffleck]

Hello Merry
You always say the most encouraging things. That is precisely the route I shall take. Rather than that fruitless, and painful, banging against the wall of we don't know who is next down the line, I'll go left and right and explore the ones we have found to date and their relationships. And in so doing, I might very well gain a ladder (or a hammer!) to deal with that wall. And that National Archives catalogue might be the place to start.
All the very best Merry.
Regards,
Colin