Advice Welcomed

[rainbowdragon]

I posted something about this problem over at familytreeforum (user name, Tanyal, apt title Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggh!), but I thought I'd set the problem out here, both to help clarify my thoughts and also ask for advice.

This is pretty long: hope nobody minds; I want to show how I come to my (possibly incorrect) conclusion.

Months ago I started working on the background of Mary Brook, the woman who married my ancestor George Tickle in 1764 in Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire. I got a photocopy of the entry from the Worcestershire Record Office (one of the few ones allowed) and saw that it mentioned Mary Brook as being of that parish, with Phillip Pumfrey as one of the witnesses.

I bought the transcriptions of St Peter de Witton, Droitwich, Hampton Lovett, and Dodderhill, as well as the MIs of Dodderhill.

I only found one potential baptism in all those transcripts or in the IGI for St Andrews: a baptism of a Mary Brooke, daughter of Edward and Elizabeth, in 1735. The time frame seemed fine, but I wasn't certain.

Then I found a Dodderhill MI: Phillip Pumfrey was listed there, with his wife, his grandson, Phillip Pumfrey and also with John and Mary Brook : John's year of death led to his baptism, but I was still not certain. Then I contacted a woman researching all the Pumfreys in Worcestershire, and she gave me marriage details of Phillip (known as John) Pumfrey to a Mary Brook in 1750; I also found their headstone and with it Mary's approximate date of birth. I then found her baptism: she was, not surprising, the daughter of John and Mary.

More research in the transcripts and the IGI led to a Brook family tree, and I found that that the Mary Brooke baptised in 1735 was part of it. So, I felt fairly confident that I'd found my Mary. I also found several several burials of Brookes that had been resident in St Andrew, Droitwich, so I knew there was a connection between the Brooke family and Hampton Lovett.

Months go by and I search back through different family lines and also forward, working on researching all the descendants of those lines (my cousins) that I could find. Along the way, I find that John Phillips, the descendant of John Allen (my ancestor?) had married a Mary Brooke as well, a submitted entry in 1753 in Bagley (Hagley?), Worcestershire. I noted it down, though I made a notice that it was submitted. Looking through my records, I could find only one Mary Brooke who was yet unassigned to a marriage. Jumping to conclusions, I decided that she was the one.

Then, yesterday, I sent for the will of their spinster daughter Sarah (dated to 1794), hoping to get more information on her family, as I've heard spinsters often leave legacies to siblings, nieces and nephews, and so on. It did mention her siblings, but it also mentioned her aunts Elizabeth and Ann Brooke. At first, I was happy: confirmation that her mother was likely Mary Brooke. Then I realised that I didn't have an Elizabeth listed under her grandparent's children. At first I assumed that maybe the baptism was just not recorded, but then I realised another thing. The parents of the Mary baptised in 1735 had had two other daughters, Elizabeth and Ann, and both women were more likely to be alive in 1794 than two women baptised in the 1720s.

So, it seems that the Mary Brooke baptised in 1735 may have married Richard Phillips instead, meaning that I do not have a baptism (and parentage) for my Mary Brook.

Months and months wasted. I'm feeling very down at the moment.

Any advice or input welcomed. I've already asked a kind member here to do some will lookups for me and, before all this, I sent away for transcriptions of the MIs of St Peter de Witton, Droitwich, and St Andrew, Droitwich.

(sniffle).