Thank You South West Heritage Trust and Parochial Church Council!
Thank you to whoever indexed this record and got the surnames right.
With news of the new additions to the Devon parish record collection on the FMP website, I thought it was about time to have another look through for my elusive three x great grandparents, William Thorn and Mary Hill's marriage.
For my whole researching life (that's 30 years plus) I have known their children's baptism dates from the family bible that came to New Zealand with their son Edmund Hill Thorn, but never their marriage date. First child, John Hole Thorn was born in 1850.
Looking up the marriage indexes (on fiche originally and later on the internet) there was no marriage that matched for William Thorn and Mary Hill and specifically none in their home parish registration district of Okehampton, Devon.
So tonight I looked up marriages in Devon for William Thorn 1848-1850, with a keyword of Hill. Just one result appeared with the bonus of having an image attached.
How quick can you click on a camera button..... very quick, and there it was, after a 30 year search. There might have been some whoops of delight and my husband telling me to breathe.
A close up of the names and of course now that I see it, I can also see how William's surname has probably been indexed and wonder why I never saw it before.
Trying those marriage indexes again and "Yes" there it is:
Lessons learned:
1. Write surnames in your own handwriting - tidy handwriting, messy writing, swoopy loopy writing and then see what the letters look like.
2. Keep track of what is being released on websites for your areas of interest, they may include the brick wall breaker.
Database and files to update now... but I wonder what else I could find tonight.
Postscript: Of course now I have also worked out why my ancestor, their son, is called Edmund, which appears nowhere else in the family. The marriage took place at St Edmund's, Exeter.
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