Family History Writing Challenge - Day 20

I was able to work forward on the Butcher family with relative ease. I still did not know the surname of his wife, a fact which frustrated me no end. I knew an approximate year, based upon the birth of their first son Charles in 1823. I descend from Charles. I searched every parish in Surrey for the marriage of John Butcher to a Mary born circa 1799. I had started with Guildford because on the 1851 census Mary had said she had been born in Artington Guildford. I could not find a marriage in Guildford, or Godalming the two main parishes either side of Artington, then I went into rural Surrey. Nothing. I searched for a marriage of a John Woolgar to a Mary for the same period. There was one, in Hascombe, Could this be it, given that just a generation or two before John there was links to Hascombe? No, The John and Mary in Hascombe were having their family in Hascombe while my John and Mary was having theirs in Wonersh. I double checked and crossed checked in case the children were baptised in both parishes, but no. They were two separate families. I wasn't even contemplating at this point if the two John's were connected. Frustration was an understatement. In disgust, I focused on their children.

Charles was the eldest of 9 children, born between 1823 and 1844, all but the last child born in Wonersh.

• Charles born 1823 *
• William born 1826 *
• Mary Anne born 1828
• Thomas born 1830
• Alfred born 1832
• James born 1835 *
• Henry born 1837
• Ellen Jane born 1841 died 1844
• John born 1844 died 1855 born in Shalford

Using the marriage sources I traced all the children. In keeping with the family tradition and the complications with marrying cousins and spouses with the same surnames Thomas married a Sarah Woolgar in 1861, and James married a Denyer in 1868.

Over the course of the last 24 years I have met just two other people who descend from the children of John and Mary, which I do find interesting. The line of Alfred moved to London, as does a later part of the family descended from William.

* What I find particularly fascinating is that I descend from Charles, I have met a contact whose wife descends from James and a contact whose line descends from William. A member of each of those lines of descent has a Thyroid condition which I find interesting.

As far as I know no one else in my family has this condition so is this coincidence, or is this something that is in the genetics?

Word count 445