Have I taken a completely wrong turning ?

[greyingrey]

Without going into details, I've been chugging along quite nicely with my Hudsons since the 1800 brick wall was overcome,

I've got a skeleton of my direct line from where they finally settled in Nottingham, back through Notts & the Notts/Leics border & then westward through Derbyshire till they end up just on the Derbys side of the Derbys/Staffs border. All seems very logical (not the same as correct I know)

Suddenly, in the 1660s, Thomas Hudson, who was baptised & continued to live in the village on the Derbys/Staffs border, seems to marry a woman from near Preston in a church in Manchester.....they move back to Thomas' home village in Derbys & stay there.

Thomas' parents on his baptism in Derbys are listed as Richard & Grace Hudson. I can't find an appropriate baptism of a Richard Hudson in Derbys/Staffs or of a marriage between a Richard Hudson & a Grace. The best I can find is the marriage of a Richard Hudson & a Grace Kitchen in Woodplumpton/Plumpton Wood, Lancs in 1634. Richard had been baptised there in 1608. If these are My Lot, it would help explain why Thomas married someone in Manchester. The name patterns are consistent &, although most of Richard & Grace's children were born in Derbys, 2 children of a Richard & Grace Hudson were baptised in Woodplumpton.....there's no clash of names or dates between the couples.

I just think it seems a bit strange for Richard & Grace to have moved down to Derbys for no apparent reason. Was there any particular dislocation in the Manchester area in the 1630s ? Apart for looking to see if there are any deaths for Richard/Grace Hudsons in the 2 areas, is there anything I can do to clarify this ?

Thanks

[Olde Crone Holden]

This probably won't help you much, but I have a branch of relations in Woodplumpton in the early 1600s. They were al secret Roman Catholics and only escaped utter persecution because they were quite wealthy and fairly high up the county set and also because they got a measure of protection from the (still very powerful) Stoneyhurst Estate.

Maybe yours weren't quite so well connected and had to move due to religious persecution?

OC

[Olde Crone Holden]

Ah, did Thomas marry Ellen Ridge at Manchester Cathedral?

If so, it might help you to know that Manchester Cathedral was what is called a "peculiar". This means it did not answer directly to any ecclesiastical authority, but reported events directly to the monarch.

It could do pretty much as it pleased, therefore and one of the things it did was to allow "no questions asked" marriages. (It also performed marriages by proxy, but that's something else, lol). Man Cath was therefore most beloved of runaways, bigamists and the underage heiress - you just turned up and the Vicar married you. This could be a reason why your relative married there, rather than locally.

OC

[greyingrey]

Thanks, OC....yes, they did get married in Manchester Cathedral. And I've just discovered there was one of the major battles of the Civil War....the Battle of Preston....a year before the birth of their first child in Derbys. And the bride came from a village near Preston

[greyingrey]

Another peculiarity was that the groom seems to have been 15 years younger than the bride.....