William and Mary Wellington of St Blazey, Cornwall

Research note by Wesley Johnston for the St Blazey Families Project - begun 10 Feb 2011 - last updated 22 Aug 2014

Overview

In 2011, I was not at all certain of the family of William and Mary Wellington. In fact, I suspected that there may have been two William and Mary Wellingtons since there were two 1799 baptisms (Mary 10 Feb 1799, William 10 Mar 1799). In addition, there were two Mary baptisms a year apart (to the day = 18 Feb 1798, 18 Feb 1799. I was not sure if this is not some anomaly in the CFHS database that is not present in the parish registers). So I lumped all the baptisms under the William WELLINGTON = Mary PASCOE marriage, but I suspected that I will have to untangle them eventually, since I expected I was likely to find another William-Mary couple at the same time in St. Blazey.

New Information in 2014

When I began this research note in 2011, I did not have access to the images of the original parish registers. Thus I was working from the Cornwall Family History Society's research database 9CFHS DB) index of baptisms. That database lists a Mary Wellington baptized at St Blazey to William and Mary on both 18 Feb 1878 and 18 Feb 1879. Now that I have access to the images of the original records, I see that there was only one baptism, which was on 18 Feb 1878.

And there was indeed a William "Willington", son of William and Mary, baptized 10 Mar 1799.

Multiple William and Mary Wellington Families

However, there is still a possible confusion of multiple William and Mary Wellington families who all married at this time. The CFHS DB shows only five William and Mary marriages, and three of them took place near enough to cause confusion.

Spelling did not count in this period. So the WILLINGTON - WELLINGTON spelling difference may have meant nothing at all. We have to see if the groom signed his name on the marriage record and how he spelled it in order to see if there was any significance to the spelling differences. Here are the URLs for the three marriages:

In the 1796 marriage, the curate spelled the name WELLINGTON, but William signed his name WILLINGTON. (Mary PASCOE made her mark.) In the 1802 marriage, both the rector and William himself spelled it WELLINGTON. (Mary DOWRICK signed her own name as well.) Note that on the prior page, William also witnessed the 1794 marriage of widower Richard ALLEN and Elizabeth widow WEBB, where he signed his name again as WILLINGTON.

So any children born prior to 1796 were from the 1790 marriage at Fowey. Any from 1796 to 1801 could be from either the 1790 or the 1796 marriage. And any born in or after 1802 could be from any of the three marriages.

So we have to look at all baptisms of children of any William and Mary WELLINGTON/WILLINGTON from 1790 onward until about 1825. (The next William and Mary WELLINGTON after 1802 was in 1829 at Lanivet.)

Baptisms

The CFHS DB lists these baptisms to William and Mary WELLINGTON-WILLINGTON from 1790 to 1825. There are 24 such baptisms in the CFHS DB:

It appears that the couple married at Creed in 1802 stayed at Creed, with these 6 children born to them:

 The Mary PASCOE who married at St Blazey in 1796 can be seen as the mother of at least three children, due to the PASCOE references:

And the baptisms prior to 1796 must be those of the 1790 couple, who apparently moved from Fowey to Kenwyn and Kea:

This leaves only the following of uncertain parentage:

The most likely couple for those at St Austell and St Blazey is the 1796 couple, married at St Blazey, with Mary PASCOE as the bride. This would make that family be as follows:

So they moved for a few years to Antony, about 29 miles east at the eastern edge of Cornwall, and then returned to St Blazey.

This leaves only the two baptisms at Lostwithiel, Ann and Grace. Without further information, these could either be the 1796 couple or the 1802 couple, since the last fairly certain baptism of each was in 1810. For now, I am carrying them in the family of Mary PASCOE, until I find evidence to the contrary. I suspect that this is correct, since the 1814 Ann, actually baptized as WILLINGTON (the index is wrong), married at St. Blazey in 1834.