Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Treasure Chest Tuesday -- 1775 Marriage Banns Record for John Richman and Mary Parsons in Trowbridge, Wiltshire

It's Treasure Chest Tuesday - a chance to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasure today is the 1775 marriage of John Richman and Mary Parsons in Trowbridge, Wiltshire:


The Richman - Parsons marriage banns record is the last one on the page:

The extracted information from this record is (handwritten information in italics):

No.  485   
Banns of Marriage between  John Richman of this Parish, widower,   
& Mary Parsons of this Parish, Spinster                                               
                                             were published on the three Sundays underwritten:
This is to say, On Sunday, the 5^th March 1774 by me Charles Hodgkin Curate
                        On Sunday, the 12^th March 1774 by me Charles Hodgkin
                        On Sunday, the 19^th March 1774 by me Charles Hodgkin

The source citation for this record is:

"Wiltshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1916," indexed database with record images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 February 2020), Trowbridge, St James with St Stephen > 1764-1783, page 76 (image 313 of 382), No. 485, Banns for John Richman and Mary Parsons, 1775.

I am not sure that John Richman and Mary Parsons are the parents of my 3rd great-grandfather, John Richman (1789-1867), but they are certainly candidates for being his parents, along with several DNA matches with other descendants of John and Mary (Parsons) Richman. 

A key clue found in this record is that John Richman was listed as a "Widower."  There are two earlier marriages of a John Richman in  to Ann Porch (in 1765) and to Susanna Rawlins in 1769.  One or both of these marriages may pertain to this John Richman.  It also "stretches out" the potential birth years for John Richman to, say, 1730 to 1750.  

There are only two John Richmans in the Hilperton or Trowbridge parish records that are potential candidates.  The best candidate is John Richman (1744-1802), baptized in Hilperton on 3 June 1744, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Rawlings) Richman.  Of course, there may be another John Richman who is not listed in the parish baptism records of Hilperton and Trowbridge who may be the John who married Mary Parsons in 1775.  I may never know!

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