Wiki Detectives - Conumdrum

Question

I have found a bit of a conumbrum with Mary Shuttlewood - Shuttlewood-32. Can anyone suss out which is correct please. The description below is on John Widdowson (Wiki Widdowson-1693).

1) FS has this John Widdowson (Wiki Widdowson-1693) married to a Mary Shuttlewood, and the same FS code designation Mary Shuttlewood is also married to another John Widdowson (Wiki - Widdowson-264) as a preference over this John Widdowson (Wiki Widdowson-1693) with the marriage dates exactly 10 years apart (1934 and 1924 - possibly a typo).
2) Both FS John Widdowson designations are different as they have different parents.
2) Mary Shuttlewood is entered into Wikitree as Shuttlewood-32 and is linked to the other John Widdowson - Widdowson-264.
According to FS they have a daughter Ann Widdowson.
3) Wikitree's Mary Shuttlewood is entered as having husband John Widdowson (Widdowson-264)
4) Mary Shuttlewoods marriage to John Widdowson (Wiki Widdowson-1693) in Sileby is confirmed by the Sileby Leicester Registers on the same marriage date
5) FS has the (Widdowson-264) marriage as St Marys Notts with a question mark.  This is possibly a confusion as there is also a St Marys in Sileby.  John Widdowson in the Sileby registers is from St Marys Parish, presumably Silebys.
6) The FS John Widdowson (Wiki Widdowson-1693) marriage to Mary Shuttlewood shows no children so by removing Mary from (Widdowson-264) would leave the child Ann orphaned unless someone can find out if  (Wiki Widdowson-1693) had a daughte Ann and it is this Ann.

Comments

Well, family trees on FS are frequently incorrect (and shouldn't be used as sources) so I would only use them for clues. I notice quite a few in that tree has sources attached so you could use those sources directly. According to the marriage record on FMP John Widdowson was a resident of Saint Mary Nottingham and married Mary Shuttlewood of Sileby 20 Jul 1834. You should be able to find some of them in the censuses which will give an idea of where each was born. I think that's what you're asking!

There's a John Widdowson baptised in Sileby on 25 Jul 1813, mother Ann no father's name (so possibly illegitimate). I think the only way to sort it out is to track down all the various John Widdowsons.

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There are a lot of Widdowsons on https://www.freecen.org.uk
So that's a good place to start.

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Thanks Gill

Answer 1

Like Gill said, don't trust other people's family trees (whether they're on FamilySearch or anywhere), trust sources that were made by people at the time of the events they describe.  I think it's good to include a link to a FamilySearch tree on a profile, when there is one, because sometimes records can be seen in a FamilySearch tree that can't currently be found through the Search menu on FS.  But bear in mind that anyone can add or remove anything from a FS tree, so even if it looks good and has a nice list of sources in today, it might be a mess when you come to look at it again another time.

I agree that Ann needs to be detached from her current parents ( Widdowson-264 and his wife ) - it makes no sense for her to be their daughter.

I think this is Widdowson-1693 in the censuses of 1851: ( https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGF2-GJ2 ) and 1881: ( https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27C-HBSY ) and there's no sign there that he might have lived in Nottinghamshire or had a daughter Ann while there.  She could be his daughter, but it looks like there are a lot of Widdowson families, so it's better to leave her unattached to anyone as long as you're unsure.  It's fine for a profile not to be connected to any others, as long as there's a good source on it so people can tell who it's supposed to be - and every profile should always have at least one good source on, anyhow.

Please try to fill in the birthplace field on profiles you make!  It's fine to use the place of baptism there, and to use the baptism date in the "birth date" field, ticking the "before this date" button to show it's not an actual birth date.  Even just a county or a country name in the birthplace field helps people when they're checking suggested matches.

I tried looking for brothers or sisters of Ann christened in Cuckney, but freeReg doesn't seem to have Cuckney baptisms and FamilySearch didn't seem to want to cough them up for me.. if you have a subscription to another website, and can find brothers and sisters, you might be able to find her family in the censuses of 1841-51, but I couldn't see an obvious match for them in Nottinghamshire in 1841.

Comments

Thanks Gill and Corinne - I'll print these out and have a closer look - i use freecen freereg and freeFS as well as other free info like Sileby registers.

I seem to have quite a number of Sileby Widdowsons in WT now and have managed to link in a couple of lost couples into their fold, hoping for more to come home.

Hopefully when Covid restrictions relax I can get back to my local library to do some detailed targeted checks

I know that there are bugs in FS results and am really careful and have found some really obvious fails in the tree results, some really stupid, like one daughter born 102 years after her supposed mothers birth!!!

Thanks again

Steve

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Corrine has added the FS version of Ann Widdowson's baptism in 1828, in Cuckney

The baptism is on freereg but recorded  under the parish of Norton.(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Norton_Cuckney)

 There are no other children that show up on the search but there is the additional information that the couple lived at Langwith and that father John was a labourer.

Nottinghamshire : Norton : St Mary : Parish Register : "Parish Register" database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/58187ea2e93790eca337161d : viewed 8 Nov 2021) baptism Ann Widdowson 31 Aug 1828

There is a burial of a Mary Widdowson of Langwith in 1832, aged 25. 

Nottinghamshire : Norton : St Mary : Parish Register : "Parish Register" database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/5818c739e93790ec759e016b : viewed 8 Nov 2021) burial Mary Widdowson 17 Nov 1832

The third entry is for a George Widdowson marrying in 1838, he was a farmer, abode Eckington, Derbyshire Nottinghamshire : Norton : St Mary : : "Parish Register" database, FreeREG (https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/58184ee4e93790eb7f8eda89 : viewed 8 Nov 2021) marriage George Widdowson to Mary Revell 20 Aug 1838

I got 179 results when I searched for Widdowson, 1800-1850 nearby places to Norton.

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Thanks Corinne - I'll print it out and check it out

Answer 2

Steve I manage some of the Widdowsons on WikiTree as family connections and I also have a connection to TOPHAM surname happy to help untangle these if you want my help.

Comments

Thanks Hilary - have emailed you