Serendipity and Blog Posts

I had two comments recently on an original post from 13 October 2015. One was from a fifth great-granddaughter of a person I had named in the story. Her comment is published with the blog post and read:

What a fantastic find for me! Ann Rice Bond who married David Dunn is my 5 great-grandmother. I was not aware of the Bond name & could find nothing further about her family. I was also having trouble figuring out why the second name of Andrews was given to a number of her children. All explained above with the addition of her parents!

It’s really great when you can provide some information that directly helps another person seeking their ancestors. That’s one of the reasons I am an OPC.

Anyway, Kerrie had never been able to find out why different second names had made in into her family tree. As it happens, serendipity prevailed and she found my post that gave her the clues.

Just to summarize what was in the October post, her 6X great-grandmother was Sarah Bond who eventually married an Amos Rice but apparently not before they had several children together. The question is whether they were living in sin or were prevented by other reasons (perhaps a former spouse still alive?) from getting married until they did. Sarah and Amos married 13 April 1784. Prior to that date the following children were baptized in Plympton St. Mary parish church:

Date Name Relationship Mother 8 Oct 1763 Betty base born d/o Sarah Bond 24 May 1768 Mary d/o Sarah Bond 2 Feb 1772 Benjamin Broadrick base born s/o Sarah Bond 1 Jan 1777 Amos Rice base born s/o Sarah Bond 11 Dec 1778 Annirice base born d/o Sarah Bond 29 Apr 1781 Richard Rice base born s/o Sarah Bond 21 Mar 1784 Sarah Rice base born d/o Sarah Bond

The couple do not appear to have had any children baptized with the surname Rice after their marriage.

Young Sarah married Robert Andrews and that surname, for some reason ended up in the family of Ann Rice Bond and David Dunn. Two of their eight children had Andrews as a second name. Both being soldiers it seems possible the men were also close friends which led to the use of the name although the same was not reciprocated in the Andrews family as only one child appears to have had a second name and that was Damerell.

Anyway, it is curious how information can be found about families, in this case through a blog post that was intended to show how relationships were formed and recorded not to highlight the history of a particular family.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.