Thread: Help needed with Cornwall Phillimore Parish Records

My interest is in a William Bennallack. With children named Ralph and Archaleous (amongst others), I am fairly confident he was the son of Ralph and Joanna(Dale)Bennallack, baptised St Agnes 27 Dec 1778. ( father Ralph had a brother Archaleous)



I have found reference to a marriage between a William Bennallack and Elizabeth Tittle (Tickle?) at St Agnes on 26 Dec 1799. Is it just a coincidence that this was almost immediately after "my" William's 21st birthday? The problem is that the children of "my" William were all born to a mother called Mary. To add to the confusion the first two were Elizabeth(1803) and William (1806).



Everything would fit if I could show that Elizabeth and Mary were one and the same person. Do you have access to any records that might support this hypothesis or, alternatively, demonstrate that it is all a unique set of misleading coincidences?



Thanks.

maybe you should get the marraige certificate and it will give more info of parents names. Found on freecen 1851 census Mary Bennalick age 48 widow living Callenick, Truro Innkeeper.

Hi Welshlady,



Many thanks for that - it would certainly explain the Mary question. Unfortunately it does pose a couple of problems.



From census and children"s baptism records it seems likely that Mary came from St Agnes as well as William. This being so, why should they both end up in Calstock, which is about as far as it is possible to get from St Agnes and still be in Cornwall. Also William was a miner and Calstock is not an area noted for its mining activity. When the couple did move it was to Devon to an area of intensive mining.



Hazelnut - they married before the issue of marriage certificates. I have seen the registry entry of the marriage between William Bennallack and Elizabeth Tittle which gives no additional identifying details, and the William Benalick/Mary Heanor marriage record found by Welshlady is similarly minimal. From census records it would seem that Mary was born circa 1780 and therefore not the person you found in 1851. She was then living in Devon with her daughter.



I have been trying to square this circle for some time now and I am slowly coming to accept that it may have to remain one of life's many unsolved mysteries - but that does not mean I have yet given up completely!

Noggin,

Sorry for the delay in responding - I've had trouble getting on to the site.

Yes, that is my Mary with sons Archaleous and John. 1841 shows her born "out of county". Husband William died 1837.

The uncertain location is North Brentor - a place I know very well!

Hi welsh lady,

Thought you might like to know that I now believe the William Benalick/Mary Heaner marriage in Calstock may be what I have been looking for. I have recently found on the Calstock OPC site the suggestion that "Heaner" might be a corruption of "Ennor". From this I discovered the baptism of a Mary Ennor in St Agnes on 18 Jan 1784. Name, location and date are all consistent with what I had deduced to be the personal details of "my" William's wife. Additionally Mary Ennor's parents were Thomas and Elizabeth. Until now I had been able to associate the names of all William's children with a family naming pattern, except for two - Thomas and Elizabeth! Not conclusive, but certainly a lot better than anything else I have come across. If this is my couple , Mary would have only been 15 when she married. Perhaps they chose to marry in Calstock to avoid parental objection.

Many thanks, belatedly, for your input.