Inscription on tablet in Westbury on Severn church. (General)

by essjay , Monday, December 18, 2017, 17:16 (2533 days ago) @ 10noyrum

That was a suggestion on MonGenes as well.

These are the facts as I know them.

Richard was born in Westbury on Severn in 1746. He and his wife Rachel Selwyn had many children, baptised at a few different churches - Westbury, Newnham and one at Littledean. Some time between the birth is the youngest child in 1793, and Richard's death in 1809 most of the family moved to Monmouthshire, leaving some of the eldest sons in Westbury. A history of the Plaisted family says that Richard went to live at Crick Manor in Mathern parish

In 1809, just under two months before his death, Richard made a will giving his abode as parish of Caerwent. In this will he gave bequests to all the children I have baptism records for except Mary. Either she had died, or he had disowned her.

Two of his daughters married on the same day at Caerwent five months before Richard's death, and were 'of this parish'.

By 1841, two of the sons had moved to the Pontypool area, though one had lived in Dinham near Shirenewton in 1808 when a child was baptised there.
The two younger sons remained in the Caerwent area. In the 1841 census, one was at Crick Farm in the Hamlet of Crick, described in the census as being in the parish of Caerwent. When this son married at Lydney in 1829 he was 'of the parish of Caerwent'. The other son was at Matherne Farm, Mathern, in the parish of Mathern in 1841.

Nowhere can I find any records indicating that Richard lived at, or even owned property, anywhere other than in the Forest of Dean, Caerwent and Mathern.

I am beginning to wonder if the tablet was commissioned some time after Richard's death, and if the commissioner was one of the sons who remained in the Forest of Dean who had only vague knowledge of the correct names of the places in Monmouthshire. Perhaps he was even a grandchild who did not know the exact date of his aunt Mary's death.