On 26 Nov 1824, a 33-year old woman named Susanna Eddy was buried at St. Blazey, Cornwall. She had died of "decline". Subtracting her age from her burial date places her birth about 1791.
There are several possibilities for who she was. They cluster in two groups:
1 - an unmarried woman named Susanna Eddy
2 - a woman whose married name was Susanna Eddy
The Cornwall Family History Society research database claims to hold all surviving baptism, marriage and burial records. The following is based on the CFHS database, but it should also be kept in mind that she may have been a woman born or married outside of Cornwall.
Facts Common to Consideration of Both Groups
There are some facts to keep in mind, based on the CFHS database, that apply to either of the two groups.
A - There were only 6 EDDY baptisms in St. Blazey and none until 7 Dec 1823 (Peter, son of James & Eleanor). The next was in 1826, after Susanna had died. So the family was not a St. Blazey family when she was born. And if she was married, she had no children baptized at St. Blazey.
B - In all of Cornwall over all years, there were only two marriages that might have been this Susanna to a man named Eddy, neither of them at or near St. Blazey. All other marriages were either after her death or before or her birth or one other marriage while she was living but was only 3 years old. The two in-range marriages are discussed in the second section below.
C - In all of Cornwall over all years, there were only 12 burials of a Susanna EDDY. Of those, six had no ages, five of whom were buried before 1791, one who was buried in 1792, so that none were her. Of the sixe who did have ages given, there is only this one burial who could be her, since all the other computed birth years (1740, 1752, 1774, 1814, 1822) are clearly not her.
1 - an unmarried woman named Susanna Eddy
Searching on the explicit surname EDDY, there are none baptized in the years 1790-1792. The ages in the Cornwall burials tend to be fairly accurate for those who were born at St. Blazey or whose family had come to St. Blazey when they were a child but less accurate for those who had been born elsewhere and were newcomer adults in St. Blazey.
Broadening the search to include 1787-1789, there are three candidate baptisms:
1787 Oct 7 at St. Hilary to William and Susanna
1789 Jan 22 at St. Just in Penwith to James and Honor [sic]
1789 May 24 at St. Just in Penwith to David and Mary [apparently buried 18 Nov 1792]
Broadening the search to include 1793-1795, there are more candidate baptisms:
1793 Nov 4 at St. Just in Penwith to David and Mary
1794 Feb 23 at St. Just in Penwith to William and Ann
Thus there are four candidates (since the 1789 Susanna had died). As noted above (Common item C), there were no burials of any other Susanna EDDY, so that at least three of these four either died outside of Cornwall or after 1837 or else married and were buried under a different name and thus could not have been her.
2 - a woman whose married name was Susanna Eddy
There are only two women named Susanna who married a man named Eddy in the period 1806-1824 when Susanna would have been alive and of marriagable age. In fact, in the period of her entire lifetime, 1791-1824, there is only one other candidate marriage, which was in 1794 when she was only 3 years old.
The two marriages were both distant from St. Blazey:
1812 Nov 16 at St. Ives - Susanna HART and Matthew EDDY
1813 Feb 1 at Perranarworthal - Susannah THOMAS and Henry EDDY
In both cases, the baptisms of these new families were distant from St. Blazey:
Matthew and Susanna - at Phillack (two on 4 Oct 1818, 28 Jan 1821)
Henry and Susannah - at Perranarworthal (3 Jul 1814)
As stated above, this was the only burial (in the CFHS database) of a Susanna EDDY that could be her. It may also have been that Matthew or Henry died and that Susanna then remarried, but the marriage records have not been checked for this.
Conclusions - Inconclusive
There simply is not enough information in the information found thus far in the CFHS database to say which of the six women (4 unmarried and 2 married) may have been the one who was buried 1824 at St. Blazey. There is also the possibility that she was baptized and/or married outside of Cornwall and was not one of the six at all.
Further research into the St. Blazey marriages might tell which of the four unmarried Susannas married and were thus buried under a different surname.
If I was forced to choose one of the six right now, I would say that Susanna HART who married Matthew EDDY was the most likely one, since she was having children at Phillack shortly before 1824.
More research is needed -- perhaps of the other EDDY burials at St. Blazey or to see if the Phillack children or Matthew EDDY showeed up in St. Blazey records. But for now, it is time for me to document this and move on to the next St. Blazey burial record.
-- Wesley Johnston