A-Z Challenge 2016: C is for Child Murch buried 1750

No, this isn't some sort of weird-and-wonderful name in my family tree, but a rather sad tale.  Gideon Murch and his wife, Elizabeth, had eight children.  Or did they?  Gideon and Elizabeth were nonconformists, and records of their children's baptisms exist in the nonconformist registers.  However, a burial also occurs which makes me wonder if all of their first three children survived.

Gideon and Elizabeth were married in 1744 in Ottery St Mary, Devon, England.  Their first child, Elizabeth, arrived in 1745, followed by baby Samuel in 1748, and James in 1749.  But then there is a curious 1750 entry in the burial register: A child of Gideon Murch.  So who was it? Elizabeth, Samuel, or James (or even a sickly baby)?  The clerk at the time did not even leave a clue as to the gender of the buried child, and I have a dreadful feeling that the nonconformist graveyard in Ottery St Mary has been concreted over.  (Hopefully, someone can tell me otherwise).

So, somewhere, there is a poor little mite (boy or girl) who was buried under the name 'Child'.  Almost like those parents who register the birth of their child without having given it a name yet, so in the indexes it is down as 'Male' or 'Female'.  At least by modern 1822, the burial register said "infant son of Samuel and Mary Murch".

© 2016 Ros Haywood. All Rights Reserved