It gets more complicated.
There is a John Beale of West Itchenor whose boat went down in 1841 when he and two sons drowned. His first wife was Jane Stroud, so he and Mary might well have married away from their native village. Mary's first child was illegitimate, but her second was born about the same time as my Maria (the images are on Family Search for West Itchenor)
This suggests that I have the wrong marriage and I have no idea who Maria's mother was!
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The chestnuts cast their flambeaux
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