Is any of your research based off a hunch? Thoughts?

[Repe]

I have a hunch who my 4x great grandmother is. The marriage records don’t survive for the parish and they do not appear in other registers.

A widow mother moves to the parish with her three daughters who are approaching marriage age. She also had one son. She remarries to the vicar.

Daughter 1 & 3 marry two first cousins. They are related to vicar.

Daughter 2 is born the right year and right first name. I think she married my 4 x great grandfather.

When my 4 x great grandmother died young, she was buried in the parish where the vicar was working (10 miles away from her home). Children of Daughter 1 who died early were also buried back in the parish.

My 4x grt grandmother had a child with the same name as the son. This name is new in the tree.

So my hunch is that Daughter 2 is my 4 grt grandma. Do you think this is strong enough evidence to pencil it in?

Have you found any census records?

Unfortunately my 4x grt grandmother died in 1820. Daughter 1 & Daughter 3 are on the census and had both moved from the parish their step father was vicar to the same one as my 4x grt grandparents (around 10 miles away)

I'd pencil it in as a possibility. I think finding the same names in different generations often suggests some familial connection plus the fact that there are lots of connections with the area. Sometimes that's the best you can do but sometimes new records surface.
I became very confused a few years ago when I 'lost' my great great grandmother and couldn't find any trace pre marriage. A year or so ago some new parish records became available and that's when I discovered she was a bigamist 😀

Order the marriage certificates of everyone connected with her. Sometimes you find that witnesses confirm that there was a link. Death certificates also give the place of death, and the informant's name, who was usually a relative. Going sideways can help you gather more information to rule people in or out.

You could also try the Bishop's Transcripts for the parish, they may survive.

It would also be worthwhile visiting the church itself and having a walk around the graveyard to see if there are any familiar names on gravestones. They sometimes help too.

There's also the possibility of wills, not necessarily hers, but for other family members who may mention her, her husband or her children in their will.

While she may have the correct name and year of birth, she may not be the only woman with that name born at around that time.

I have found on several occasions, both men and women, born with the same name and within a year or two of each other (they were likely distantly related through different branches of the same family).

These have involved ancestors with common names like Elizabeth, Mary or Thomas. If your ancestor had a much more uncommon name then it is more likely that this is the correct person.

I would suggest two things. Searching out to see if there were any other girls born in that area or nearby around the same time with the same name. If there were, then you need to find out what happened to them in order to eliminate them from consideration.

Did they die young? Did they marry somebody else? This will help to eliminate them from your consideration. If there is no clear evidence that they did die early or marry then you cannot discount them.

Another source is to do a DNA test and, if your parents are alive and willing to do a DNA then get them to do one as well - it makes so much difference going back an earlier generation.

Ancestry is typically the best place to do a DNA test, and they have regular discounts so just wait until they have a sale.

It is likely that when you have DNA matches with other people then when you compare both your and their family trees that will give you a lot of extra insight as to whether she is your relation or not.

"Order the marriage certificates of everyone connected with her."

I think they're unlikely to be available:

"Unfortunately my 4x grt grandmother died in 1820."

Similarly with death certificates.

"There's also the possibility of wills, not necessarily hers, but for other family members who may mention her, her husband or her children in their will."

This is a very good point. Although, it was only the wealthier families that left a will that would need to be proved.

There is some very helpful information here from The National Archives on how to search their records for wills before 1858:

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/wills-or-administrations-before-1858/

By the way, the National Archives can be a great place to search for stuff. Just one small example. I came across an entry from 1683 in the records of the Court of Chancery.

A woman who was a widow sued her three brothers and sister for the return of her inheritance and her deceased husband's estate that they had taken. It was full of lots of interesting gossip.

It also confirmed a lot of additional details about the family members and who they were married to.

These are all very distant relations of mine; on one side we are first cousins 11 times removed (in other words, their father was the brother of my 10 x great grandfather).

It may be that you are right - hunches often are. But as others have said without certificates (which you are not going to get as it is pre civil registration) proving is going to be very difficult.

I know that certificates are not available until the start of registration in July 1837. Ordering marriage and death certificates of her children & grandchildren plus the descendants of her siblings etc will throw up additional names which could fill in blanks and confirm a family connection that might otherwise be hard to prove.

Have you looked at the local newspapers? I've had a lot of luck with those at around that time.

That's really interesting. Do you mind me asking which site you're using?

You can find out what local newspapers were published using the British Library Catalogue (the search engine isn't great), or ask at the local archives.

FMP (British Newspaper Archive) is digitising the BL newspapers, but hasn't finished. If you're not a FMP member, it's worth checking if your local library subscribes. It's free, but you have to go in to view. (Our library also allows you to view at home some BL digitised newspapers from Gale.com.)

There's Newspapers.com (linked to Ancestry?), and this has US papers. Also, NZ newspapers https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers
Welsh newspapers https://newspapers.library.wales/

The optical character recognition isn't always so good for the older newspapers, but notices are sometimes copied to other newspapers, which increases your chances of finding something. I had one marriage from 1816 copied from Suffolk to Oxford. The couple weren't particularly wealthy, and I was excited to find the bride's occupation was given (milliner!). You can also browse for dates you are interested in.

It's also worth checking the local archives. Some have indexes of names published in BMD announcements.

I intuited my way to a biological parent when I had an ancestry account, later fully confirmed by DNA. I had very little to go on, and it was a real needle in a haystack find. Similarly followed hunches with a handful of facts to identify a grandparent on the other side and the DNA matches strongly supported my theories.

Intuition is probably just a very strong need to know that can fuel endless hours of research.

I’d second the newspaper suggestion. I was able to find a lot from a marriage announcement in the newspaper for early 1800s, when the parish marriage record didn’t even have father’s names. It told me the groom’s address and occupation, bride’s father’s name, address and occupation and that the bride was his second daughter. Since there was no census for that time, it helped a lot!