Two Thomases or one? |
0n 9 March 2023 Brian Homewood put forward a hypothesis for consideration. He is descended from the John Lovelock who was born in 1708 or 1709 in Longparish, Hampshire who is presently recorded as the progenitor of 'The Wherwell Fragment'. This was absorbed into 'The Tangley Tree' some time ago, but later research has proved that there is no evidence to prove a connection and so the Fragment once again stands alone.
However, Brian has observed that all we have in the Fragment concerning Thomas, one of the sons of John, is that he was baptised at Wherwell on 24 Apr 1743. Brian turned then to the 'Hampshire-Suffolk-Rutland-Herefordshire Tree' where he observed that the progenitor was a Thomas Lovelock who died in 1827 at the age of 83, indicating a birth in 1743 or 1744. Are the two Thomases one and the same?
There are a number of pieces of related information that may be evidence of nothing more than coincidence, but will surely merit wider consideration.
Firstly, another son of John baptised in Wherwell was Richard, who on 12 Oct 1779 married an Elizabeth Carter. Meanwhile, Thomas at the head of the Hampshire-Suffolk-Rutland-Herefordshire tree had married a Lydia Carter on 21 Nov 1771. Could Elizabeth and Lydia be sisters? It would by no means be the only example of two brothers marrying two sisters, even in our accumulated data.
Secondly consider the children of Thomas and Lydia. First comes Thomas, possibly named for his father. Then John. Next is Lydia, possibly named for her mother. Another Thomas follows as the first had died at the age of 5, but then comes another daughter, this time named Mary. Could John and Mary be named after their paternal grandparents, John Lovelock and Mary Emmins of the Wherwell Fragment?
Thirdly, the name Lydia only occurs in our Hampshire records in two places: Wherwell and Twyford (where the Hampshire- Suffolk-Rutland-Herefordshire tree begins).
Our 1841 Census data for Hampshire records that a Lydia was living with John and Sarah (nee Dimmock) Lovelock in Wherwell. John was the son of Richard and Elizabeth (nee Carter) mentioned above. He and Sarah baptised three children at Wherwell, but not, apparently, a Lydia. Her age was clearly rounded down to 25 in 1841, but we can trace her in later Census Returns which indicate a birth in 1811 or 1812. Richard and Elizabeth did have a daughter Mary Ann and when she married in 1845 one of the witnesses was Lydia Lovelock. If they were not sisters they were obviously very close.
Still on the Lydia theme, Thomas and Lydia (nee Carter) in the Hampshire-Suffolk-Rutland-Herefordshire tree in fact had two daughters that they named Lydia. The first died when just short of her third birthday, but the second, born in 1784, lived to 1857. She married an Aaron Atwood and apparently had no children, but it is the timing of the wedding that might be significant. They married on 23 May 1811. IF, and this is pure speculation, there was a familial connection between the Wherwell and Twyford families then perhaps John and Sarah were invited to the wedding of what would have been John's cousin Lydia. And if Sarah was already pregnant with a second daughter who would be born later that year, why might she and John not have named her after the bride, and indeed the bride's mother?
So can we extend the Hampshire-Suffolk-Rutland-Herefordshire tree back one generation by joining it to the Wherwell Fragment?