Jane Hawkins (General)

by Hawkeye, Sunday, July 16, 2006, 05:37 (6705 days ago) @ slowhands

Well its been a while but its taken Gloucester records office 6mnths to reply to a research request on this one.

Basically I'm no further forward than before except they did turn up one nugget of info from the marriage record of John Hawkins.
This shows that the witnesses of the marriage included a Hannah Clay.

From this info I suggest another scenario is possible...

IGI has a reference to the Birth (09/Mar/1808) and Christening (13/Mar/1808)of Hannah Clay daughter of Thomas Clay and Jane Hawkins at Awre with Blakeney batch C023302.

I think this is John's half sister.

However, I suspect that Jane Clay (nee Hawkins - John and Hannah's mother) dies somewhere between 1808 and 1810.

IGI then has a reference to the Birth (15/Jun/1811) and Christening (14/Jul/1811) of a William Clay son of Thomas Clay and Jane Tirley at Awre with Blakeney batch C023302

They also go on to have two more sons Thomas (05/Oct/1817) and George (20/Apr/1823)

Now looking at marriages in IGI as Slowhands has already said there are two references to a Thomas Clay marrying a Jane (neither of these have official batch numbers though)

Abt 1807 Thomas Clay mr Jane Hawkins at Awre (1st wife?)
Abt 1810 Thomas Clay mr Jane Tirley at Awre (2nd wife?)

So Thomas has 2 wives both named Jane...how inconsiderate of him!

Interestingly the census records for 1841/1851 and 1861 show a Jane Clay wife of Thomas living within a few houses of the Tirleys.

Unfortunately I cant look at the Deaths Register to confirm the death of Jane Hawkins as this only starts from 1813.

I suspect that the only routes forward from here are...

To look at parish records to find a reference to the marriage of Thomas Clay and Jane Hawkins abt 1807 - although I wonder if this exists, otherwise why is it not in the IGI official batches already?

To look if there are any monumental records in support.

I have a few questions if anyone can help me...

Are the parish records for Awre complete around the period 1780-1813?
As I find it strange that there are no references to either the Birth/Christening of Jane Hawkins or her subsequent marriage.
The location of Awre and Blakeney is I think a 'constant' throughout my research

Do death records exist prior to 1813?

Does anyone have any other suggestions of what else to try?