Finding Mary Chedzoy!

I wonder if anyone can help? Most of my father's maternal line lived and died in Wiltshire, but out of the blue, and after much hunting, I found one of my ancestors William King had gone to Comtyther, (Llansanffraid Cwmteuddwr) Radnorshire, in Wales. There he married a Mary Chedzoy in 1803 and three of their children were born in that village. They did come back to Alvediston in Wiltshire because their fourth child was born there. I know all this information because a very lovely lady in the Powys record centre was obviously bored on the day i phoned and found the records and sent them to me in an email!
I have had no problem with finding information about the King side but Mary Chedzoy is proving to be hard to find anything about. I do wonder why she went to Wales as the the 1851 census states she was born about 1776 in Spaxton, Somerset. I have hunted and hunted in lots of Somerset records but unfortunately, without knowing her father's name, i just cannot pinpoint her! There are also lots of variations on the Chedzoy surname. Any ideas would be fantastic as i would love to find out more about her. I have hit a mental block ......

 

Have you tried FreeReg their coverage of Somerset is quite extensive and growing.
According to FreeReg Spaxton baptisms have been transcribed 1688-1851 and she is not there so either she was not baptised there or is under a different name/spelling.
But it has this entry for Mary Chedzoy, Cannington is only 2 miles from Spaxton.
County Somerset
Place Cannington
Church St Mary
RegisterNumber
DateOfBirth
BaptismDate 06 Nov 1774
Forename Mary
Sex F
FatherForename William
MotherForename Hannah
FatherSurname CHEDZOY
MotherSurname
Abode
FatherOccupation
Notes
FileNumber 12596

 

Yahoo Groups have an excellent Somerset Group with loads of transcribed records. Think this link might get you there. They are a very helpful group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/somersetfamilyhistory/

 

Wow, thank you everyone. I will have a look at the sites recommended on the weekend when i have time to really check them out. I really appreciate this . Derek...thank you for looking up that and i did have it down as one of my possibilities, amongst others. It's good to have someone else think the same as i have! Peter....i will look at the Paris Locator again as it will remind me of the area. It's only recently i have decided to go back to this ancestor and see if i can find out more information now. Bee...thank you for that link. I have had a quick look and have to confess i didn't know about it. It looks very useful and i will spend some time on the weekend checking it out. Tim.....thank you. Someone else told me about the place called Chedzoy. Apparently some surnames originated from the areas people were born in so it was on my list of possible birth places for Mary. I will get to the bottom of her birth...........but it may take time. Again thank you so much for the ideas.

 

In my experience UK death certs of that time never give any datails of parents, the best you can hope for is that the informant was a known family member. Even the age on the death cert is what the informant thought it was which sometimes is quite incorrect and leads to many wrong assumptions as to the person's likely birth date.

 

People keep mentioning the village of Chedzoy without giving the URL http://www.thefamilyhistorypages.co.uk/Chedzoy.html which has a lot of information about the village. The site has not been updated for 9 years so I suspect the worst. But the information is still valid, has a long list of names sadly your Mary is not listed.
My ancestors were Chidsey or Chidzy who no doubt at some time in the distant past were from Chedzoy or near by.
Chedd or Cedd was a Saxon Saint who lived in the mid 600AD and is reputed to have been sent by St Augustine to convert the heathens in the Somerset Levels. Zoy is Saxon for Land or Island so Chedzoy is the Land or Island of Ched. All Chedzoys, Chedgys, Chedzys, Chidzys, etc are supposedly from there, but that is just an story to which we will never know the truth.

 

Sorry I forget Scotland is different, I have never had the need to get a Scotish certificate so have no idea as to the content. I have many ENGLISH death certs and NONE give any information regarding parents or spouse or children.

 

Gosh so much information, very different to the English one, which only has Date of death and where, Name, Sex, Age, Occupation, Cause of death, Informant details such as name and address (not even a relationship to the deceased), date registered and signature of registrar. That was on a cert from 1842 and I have certs covering all periods through to the 1960s that still only show basically the same data. It has changed now but far to late for genealogical purposes.
The Scottish one is similar to some Australian and Canadian death certs that I have seen and dare I say it, so much better.

 

Well, well, thank you again....i have to say it was fascinating to look at the Scottish Death certificate. I totally agree that it is rather different from the English ones.......you could find out all sorts from one of those. When the lovely lady at the Powys archives sent me the marriage record it actually looked like a slip of paper with very little information on from the church. I think i must look into this more and see if there is any way i can find out witnesses etc that may give me a clue to anything...something.....?? I am totally determined to find out more information and so all i can say is 'watch this space' as i am on the case this weekend

 

Hi Cathy............indeed there was!!! Well done for noticing. I have no idea how i wrote the wrong date for their marriage but i have now edited it to the correct date of 1803, instead of 1828, as you can see when you recheck my first post. I think i was looking at her son, also called William King like her husband, and his date of marriage. Just goes to show what happens when you don't concentrate