23 November 2009

Fiery Furnace Alert

Today's notable anniversary is the marriage of my gt-gt-gt-gt-gt-uncle William Bullard to Sarah Boden, at St Mary, Hitchin in 1769. The only other info I had about the pair was a note referenced to my Canadian cousin Jan which said "basketmaker who lived in Hitchin and had eleven children".

So, never one to be daunted by a challenge, I started to investigate the Bullards of Hitchin and, sure enough, William and Sarah had eleven children, born between 1770 and 1793. So far I have also found twelve grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

However the greatest of my finds is, as you might guess, related to today's title.

William & Sarah's oldest son, William, married Elizabeth Leonard, also at St Mary, Hitchin, on 1st July 1792 and they had ten children (must be something in the water). It was their daughter Maria who made my day . . . . . when she married Abednego Day. Cracking name, I thought, and carried on regardless, searching the IGI for Days (searching, that is, for children with the surname Day, not . . . . !).

And then it occurred to me that I'd seen another pair of cracking names . . . . and I investigated further. William Day and his wife Judith had ten children between 1782 and 1805 including, in 1792, Shadrach, in 1794 - Meshach and, in 1801, Abednego.

Lucky they had another boy really or they could have ended up with Shadrach, Meshach and Ann. Doesn't trip off the tongue quite so well, does it.

Made me smile on a soggy day!

More soon.




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