John Butcher and his Aunt Sarah

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Recently, I have been trawling through the parish registers of Sparsholt, Hampshire, near Winchester.

I found this intriguing entry and just had to follow it up.

Baptism - May 13th 1810 - William, son of John Butcher Jnr and Sarah his Aunt.

Wait! What, his aunt?

A search through the register shows that John and his Aunt Sarah had four other children, Maria in 1806, George in 1807, Susanna in 1812 and Mary in 1815.

Sarah died in 1821 and was buried as Sarah Butcher 38y, the Aunt and wife of John Butcher.

(Was that legal?) Obviously, this situation bothered the Vicar, William Masters greatly, he made mention of "the Aunt" at every opportunity!

John Butcher and Sarah Wise were married on 5 Oct 1805 at Twyford, on the other side of Winchester.

Research on the Wise family shows that Charlotte Wise (b1763) married John Butcher in 1784 and their son John Butcher Junior was born c1784.

After the death of her mother Susanna in 1770, Charlotte's father remarried and their daughter Sarah was born in 1782. Sarah was indeed John Butcher's aunt.

As far as I can tell, the Butchers and the Wises are not related to my family but you can see that I got really sidetracked by this little entry in the Register.

William Masters was the Vicar at Sparsholt for over 40 years and wrote helpful comments in the Burial Register, like "he threw himself down the well at Balldown on the 15th in a fit of temporary derangement" and "he dropt down dead coming up the hill to his house"

He also, at the behest of the government, he took a census of the parish in 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831, writing the number of houses, men and women in the front pages of the Register. Someone has also compiled a list of all the ministers (and whether they lived in Sparsholt).

Most interesting information.