Sarah Welford/Wilford (MMMMMM)

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Name - "official" name and what they were known as
Sarah - possibly Welford, or Wilford, but not entirely sure

Date and place of birth
about 1798, possibly in Naseby Northamptonshire

Names of parents
possibly Charles Wilford and Martha Allen

Date and place of baptism - if applicable
not known - allowing that her first child was born in 1820, probably before 1800

Details of each of his or her marriages - if any
[COLOR="red"]married John ILIFFE of Brinklow Warwickshire, 23 Sep 1816 Kilsby


Occupation(s) - if any

Addresses where they lived (including county if in UK) - and please list which censuses you have or haven't found him/her on (if s/he lived in census times!).

[COLOR="red"]Possbily 1816 Kilsby
1820-1830, Monks Kirby Warwickshire (Baptist Chapel records children)

Date, place and cause of death
Feb 1832

Date and place of burial.
28 Feb 1832 Withybrook Warwickshire - probably child birth related.
Details of will / administration of their estate - if applicable
none known
Memorial inscription - if any
not known

Found husband John in census 1841-1871 in Marston Moretaine. This is the link to daughter REBECCA ILIFFE http://genealogistsforum.co.uk/forum...rebecca+iliffe

[kiterunner]

Kilsby is in Northamptonshire, just a few miles from Rugby. Brinklow's pretty close to Rugby too.

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Thanks Kite - I have been checking how close all the towns are and where the county borders are, but I am still not clear about it all.

Theres a freebmd death for a Sarah Iliffe, Jun Q 1839 in Lutterworth, which is the Reg District for Monks Kirby.

If this is the right one, and there don't seem to be many other Sarahs in the family, then John remarried pretty quickly, on 6 Jun 1839 to Phoebe Boot.

I guess I would then think that Sarah was local to Kilsby rather than Brinklow, but I seem to have had the impression they moved to Marston Moretaine before 1839, which now may be wrong and I will have to do some more searching.

Di

[NickiP]

Hi Di

You may now already be aware of this but Sarah Iliffe nee Wilford was buried at Withybrook on 19 Feb 1832 aged 33 years suggesting she was probably born about 1798. This casts serious doubts on the claims on various Ancestry family trees that she was the daughter of Benjamin Wilford and Sarah Henson who baptised a daughter Sarah in Naseby in 1803. That Sarah would only have been 13 years old when she married and while not impossible, its very, very unlikely.

You will find the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Will of Martha Timbs of Old Stratford proven in 1856 of interest. In it she mentions "John Iliffe late of Monks Kirby in the county of Leicestershire (sic) who married my sister Sarah some time since deceased". Martha was the widow of William Timbs of Stony Stratford and had no children. She also mentions her brother Joseph, sister Hannah Pitts, nephew John Norton Wilford (her sister Hannah's illegitimate son) and her niece Sarah the wife of John Gardener of Stony Stratford. Sarah Gardener was the daughter of Martha's sister Mary but Mary nor her other children were mentioned in the Will.

As Benjamin and Sarah Wilford did not have daughters named Martha or Hannah, that kills off once and for all the theory that Sarah Iliffe nee Wilford was their daughter.

That said to date I have been unable to find baptisms for Sarah or her four siblings in either Northamptonshire, Warwickshire or Leicestershire. Its possible they may have been baptised in a non-conformist chapel whose registers have not survived. Joseph Wilford's second marriage certificate from 1840 confirms their father was Charles, a weaver, but not the Charles who married Ann Lewis in Husbands Bosworth and Mary Hall nee Haines in Naseby as he did not have daughters named Martha or Sarah with either wife.

John Iliffe's 3rd wife Harriet Pitts was John's sister in law Hannah Pitts nee Wilford's stepdaughter. She remarried to Luke Moore in 1873 and was visiting her stepmother's niece Sarah Gardener on the 1891 Census.

I hope this is of interest. Other researchers with an interest in this family seem to not be prepared to even consider that they may have the wrong Wilford line even when presented with some of the above evidence. I've tried to contact a Toronto-based researcher descended from John Norton Wilford who has claimed on several forums that Hannah Wilford was the daughter of Charles and Mary nee Haines, but not even an email to the Ontario Genealogy Society, of which his wife is known to be actively involved, has elicited a response.

[Merry]

I have noted 23 Sep 1816, in Kilsby Bedfordshire, from freeREG

Kilsby is in Northants, not Bedfordshire.

Re the parents of Sarah and the various siblings - my money is on the marriage between Charles Willford of Naseby and Martha Allen of Long Buckby who married 24 May 1777 at Long Buckby, witnesses Ann Staughton, William Willford, Andrew Allen and Sara Rodgers.

[NickiP]

Hi Merry, yes my money is on the Charles Wilford and Martha Allen marriage but I've yet to find any children baptised to them in either CofE or non-conformist chapels. Neither left a Will either unfortunately. The Allens of Long Buckby were apparently non-conformist at that time and the Long Buckby Independent Chapel doesn't have any records before sometime in the 1790s which would exclude four of the five siblings by their probable ages on census/burials. Its possible they could be baptised in a chapel whose registers are missing or are deposited with a County Records Office rather than the National Archives and haven't been indexed/digitised yet. Its only a theory and so far not provable. There are a couple of other Wilfords born around that time in the Naseby/Market Harborough area, one of whom lists Naseby as his birthplace on the 1851 Census, but I've yet to work out who either of their parents were. Just wish I could find something to prove the parent's theory but finding Martha Timbs nee Wilford's Will has been very helpful in confirming five siblings and excluding several sets of parents. Having been researching this line for 17 years I'm hoping at some point to be able to confirm the parents beyond any doubt.

[Merry]

They sound like my non-conformist relations from the wrong part of Bedfordshire (ie an area where the records have not survived)!

I'm certain you will make a breakthrough eventually.

It's a pity there are no names in this (below), whether it to eliminate a mass of people or prove a few facts!! (I note the numbers don't actually total 264!):

05 January 1815 - Exeter Flying Post - Exeter, Devon, England
*
Lately, died at Naseby, Northamptonshire, Mrs. Mary Wilford, aged 93: she has left five sons and two daughters, 35 grand children and 38 great grand children; she was aunt to 15, great aunt to 81, great great aunt to 108 and great great great aunt to 6, all of whom are now living, amounting to 264 souls.

[Merry]

You mentioned Sarah and Martha etc had a sister named Mary. Do you know her approx. date/place of birth?

I worked out her husband was William Marsan (spelling from Sarah's marriage cert with witnesses J (?) N Wilford and Sophia Wilford, amongst others), and saw their marriage (spelling Marston, witnesses Joseph Wilford and Hannah Wlford) in 1815 at Naseby, so presumed Mary might have been born about 1795ish, but I couldn't see them on a census/burial to confirm.

Anyway, the reason I was wondering this is because I noticed this burial:

Mary Wilford but 5 May 1793 at Naseby, the dau of Charles Wilford.

I wondered if this was a sister of the others, born and died before the Mary who married William Mars*n? There is no obvious baptism for this Mary or for any other children of a Charles in Naseby around this timeframe. If it is a child of the right Charles (not sure how you would prove that!) then at least it's a contemporary record placing the family, rather than relying on census birth places.

[Merry]

I knew there was something else..... Other burials for children in Naseby around the same time and entered up by the same vicar mention the name of the mother was well as the father. I have seen before an apparent level of contempt from C of E vicars when having to bury non-conformist children in their churchyard and I wondered if this vicar was irritated (or insert other adjective) that this Charles Wilford didn't normally attend his church and the child was not baptised there, so why would he bother with writing the wife's name down?

My Bedfordshire non-conformists buried their babies in the C of E but the older children/adults seem to have been interred somewhere where the records have not survived, so presumably a non-conformist chapel (I've been picking away at them for 25 years+!)

[NickiP]

Mary Wilford buried 1793 was the daughter of Charles Wilford and Ann Lewis baptised at Husbands Bosworth in 1782. Her mother was buried at HB in 1791 and Charles returned to Naseby (he was baptised there in 1754 the son of John and Sarah Wilford nee Lynett). That Charles had another daughter Mary baptised with his second wife Mary Hains in Feb 1812. She would appear to have been buried aged 3 years in Naseby in 1815. That Charles Wilford had seven children baptised at Husbands Bosworth between 1774 and 1788 with his first wife Ann Lewis and a further seven with his second wife Mary Hains all baptised in 1812, most of them together without ages. He married for the second time in 1797 at Naseby (Mary Hains married as the widow Mary Hall) and the ages of the children on census/burials suggest they were born after the marriage and not before. In any case he didn't have daughters named Martha or Sarah. There are numerous inaccurate trees on Ancestry listing his son Charles (baptised HB in 1778) as the Charles Wilford in Eccles, Lancashire, but that Charles was baptised two years earlier in Eccles the illegitimate son of a Mary Wilford. Evidence confirming this (other than his age on his marriage and burial both point to the 1776 baptism and not 1778) is a monumental inscription for a grave in Eccles churchyard (prior to its clearance) whereby two of that Charles' sons were buried with their paternal grandmother Mary Wilford's parents. As it was a private grave there would be no other reason for those two children to be buried in that particular grave unless they were family. Charles Wilford son of Charles and Ann Lewis would appear to have married Sarah Wilkinson at Oadby, Leicestershire, in 1802 and moved back to Naseby by 1821. He was a bit of a naughty boy and got convicted on several occasions including sentence of transportation but appears to have managed to get a reprieve and remained in this country dying in Naseby in 1849. All evidence tends to suggest he was the Husbands Bosworth Charles but some researchers are not prepared to consider this as it means their nice large tree is a little inaccurate. The original so-called link from Eccles to Husbands Bosworth appears to have come from an LDS Patron submission which was accepted as accurate in spite of contradicting itself by quoting both the 1828 burial in Eccles and 1849 in Naseby for the same Charles Wilford.

John Wilford who married Sarah Lynett was the brother of Benjamin Wilford who, with second wife Rose Ingram, were the parents of Charles Wilford who married Martha Allen. So the two Charles Wilfords were first cousins.

The Mary Wilford who died aged 93 in 1815 (although she was likely only 92) was Mary Cheney wife of John Wilford. John Wilford appears to be the one baptised in 1712 in Arthingworth to Joseph Wilford and Mary nee Ellis (his father was from Lubenham in Leicestershire). There are a considerable number of Wilfords in Naseby and the surrounding area and unfortunately there appears to have been a lot of inaccurate connecting going on by a number of researchers into the various lines.

I've been working my way through the Naseby Wilfords for some years as many, including those in surrounding parishes, appear to be related. I may well once happy with my research upload a public tree to Ancestry in the hope it may help future researchers in light of the fact there are problems with a number of the public trees on the site relating to these families. I'm not saying I'm likely to be completely correct but my research is based on a wider look at all the Wilfords in the area and not restricted to what "appears" to fit the known facts. The fact that there are several Wilfords in Naseby and the surrounds who weren't baptised is causing some of the problems but so is the number of them with the same names.