Where did my great great grandparents marry?
QI’m searching for the marriage of my great great grandparents, Rosetta Tolhurst ( born 2 September 1804, Lamberhurst, Kent) and William Baker ( born 1805). William died in 1866 in Lambeth, and Rosetta died on 22 March 1884 in Camberwell. Their first daughter was Margaret Elizabeth ( born 15 November 1834, Southwark). Marilyn Smith, by email
AMargaret Elizabeth’s baptism record, at St Saviour Southwark, gives the family’s address as Castle Street. Baptism registers for Southwark parishes, as indexed on Ancestry, do not show any earlier children born to William and Rosetta. The 1841 census of Cole Street, Newington, includes William and ‘Rose’ Baker and several children. In 1851, also in Cole Street, Rosetta is recorded as “Jane”, a widow, and born in Lamberhurst, Sussex (the parish lay on the Kent and Sussex border). Both the 1841 and 1851 censuses show the family in the same house as Richard Baker and his family. Richard was born about 1812 in Horsemonden, Kent, just north of Lamberhurst, and is therefore possibly William’s brother.
FamilySearch includes the baptism of a William Baker on 20 February 1802 in Horsemonden, son of Richard and Frances. However, there is no entry for Richard. William probably didn’t die in 1866. There is a burial for a William Baker of Coles Place, aged 43, at St George the Martyr on 7 October 1849.
It is therefore likely that William and Rosetta (perhaps as Rose or Jane) married either in the Lamberhurst/Horsemonden area in Kent, or in Southwark; and probably in or before 1834.
There is no entry for their marriage in Southwark and surrounding parishes. Searching for marriages in West Kent is more problematic. Neither Horsemonden nor Lamberhurst are included in ‘Kent Marriages’ on Findmypast. ‘Kent Marriages 1813-1837’ are included in the members’ area of the Society of Genealogists’ website. Both parishes are also included on FamilySearch. The coverage for Kent parish registers on Ancestry is unclear. Even ignoring any particular parish or county, there is no marriage of Rosetta/ Rose/Jane Tolhurst and William Baker listed on any of these major websites. It could be that the couple never married.