Brick Wall Number 4 - Wife of Thomas Rawlins

Brick Wall Number 4: Wife of Thomas Rawlins

Almost from the beginning of my research days I have been able to reach back to Thomas Rawlins (and further back but the name of his wife was a riddle. There was a marriage of a Thomas Rawlence
and Mary Dove 9 Dec 1807 at Woodford on the IGI but I see now that it is record by another researcher as Thomas Rawlins and Mary Dear same date. I have an image of the original record from the Woodford Parish Registers. The original record reads Thomas Rawlines and Mary Dove both of the parish, bachelor and spinster, with witnesses John Thornton and Dinah Moore.  There are no Rawlins family in the Woodford registers that I found in this time frame. There are Dove families in the register. Possibly Mary is the daughter of William Dove and Jane Morgan who married 1 Jan 1783 at Saint Thomas Salisbury Wiltshire. I only found one child in the register at Woodford Robert baptized 14 Apr 1793 and buried 6 Aug 1793 all at Woodford (he was baptized the same day as he was born). William is like the son of William and Mary Dove (Mary was buried 4 Jun 1787 at Woodford) and the mother of William also Mary Dove a widow was buried 30 Oct 1733 at Woodford.

The riddle in all of this is that the first child of Thomas and Mary Rawlins isn't born until circa 1813 and she has likely died by 1819 when another child is given the same name Harriet. Family lore in another family line says that Thomas was at the battle of Waterloo (like is later daughter in law's father George Lywood). I have not yet found that reference. The next child after Harriet is Isaac and likely born around 1818 as he died december quarter 1885 at Amesbury (aged 67 years).  The last child of this family born in 1825 is my 2x great grandfather William Rawlings.

I am somewhat on the side of thinking that Mary Dove is the wife of Thomas Rawlins. It would be nice to find a really solid proof. The marriage lines say that he is of the parish of Woodford but I know that he was born and raised at Enford but he could have gone there to work. Certainly his father Jeremiah Rawlings married at Tilshead but the priest identified him as of Enford. Handy information but this doesn't appear on the Woodford Parish Registers. 

The younger children in this family were born at Enford and I do not know yet where the older children were born.