Anne Prisk - who was she?

[prodda]

Hi all

My 3 x great grandmother Mary Prisk was baptised as a base child to Anne Prisk at St Hilary on 19 April 1812. She married George Rodda at St Hilary 20 years later & had children before moving to Phillack.

I realise that there's no chance of finding out who Mary's father was so have been trying to find more information about Anne without success. I cannot find a likely birth/marriage or death record for her and have basically hit a brick wall. I assume she would have been born in late 1780's or 90's but can find no trace of her (there is a birth record for Anna Prisk at St Hilary in 1793 but she died in infancy so I ruled it out).

I'm completely stuck with this and wonder if anyone has any information or could point me in the right direction please? I would be very grateful

Phil

[Cornish Terrier]

If you allow a reasonable age range then there are four possibilities transcribed in the OPC database. By 'reasonable' I meant that Anne's age would have to be within the range of about age 15 to age 48 at the time of Mary's birth. Generally speaking I use these ages as the minimum and maximum for women to be having children in those days - I don't see a large amount under 17 but I do see many women still having children at age 48!

The second thing you need to be aware of (and I suspect this may be why you haven't found those I am talking about) is that 'Anne' can be found as 'Ann', Nanny, Nancy as well. Nanny and Nancy are more common a little later but can be found in earlier records.

Those on my list are:-

1. Anne daughter of Mary Prisk, widow, baptized 2nd October 1774 at Wendron - she would have been about 38 when Mary was born so must be considered a possibility even though it is more possible she was already married.
2. Ann daughter of John and Ann Prisk baptized 16th September 1787 at Redruth - would have been about 25 and, like Wendron, Redruth is only a couple of Parishes away from St Hilary.
3. Ann daughter of Samuel and Mary Prisk baptized 8th April 1788 at St Erth - woujld have been about 24 and St Erth shares a fairly large southern border with St Hilary.
4. Ann daughter of Samuel and Jennifer Prisk baptized 22nd July 1798 at Redruth - the youngest about about age 14 so by far the least likely unless she was born a couple of years before her baptism.

At this point my favourite would be the daughter of Samuel and Mary at St Erth but you would need to check each thoroughly to see whether they may have died young or might have been married before 1812.

Also have a look at the list of children from Mary's marriage - they may give a clue especially if she had any knowledge of who her father was.

CT

[prodda]

Thanks CT, sorry it's taken my quite a while to check back. There's plenty of info for me to work on there. Many thanks indeed. Will let you know if I make progress.

[Cornish Terrier]

That's okay, we all get sidetracked.

It may not be easy but you will need to try and track down as much information as you can to help identify each of the possibilities. With some luck you might be able to eliminate one or more with that information but there is no guarantee.
If the father(s) of any of the possible mothers left a Will then you could hope for a mention of the grandchild but again there can be no guarantees. But certainly the best bet would be to try and find enough information to eliminate each possibility until hopefully just one remains.

CT