It is possible that my 6xgreat grandfather John Wales was baptised at Pakefield, Norfolk/Suffolk, in 1740, son of James Wales and his wife Mary Turner. This couple – both single and resident at Pakefield – were married there on 21 December 1731 and had baptised four children at Pakefield (including John Wales) between 1732 and 1740. Their last three children were all baptised at Carlton-Colville, Suffolk, which my 5xgreat grandfather Aaron Wales claimed in his examination at Holt in 1791 was the legal settlement of his parents.
James Wales ‘a married man’ was buried at Carlton
Colville on 10 May 1751, leaving his widow with 4-5 surviving children of
eleven years or younger. Mary Turner (Wales) married for a second time a
couple of months later on 26 August 1751 at Carlton-Colville. Her groom was Thomas Stewart. The
marriage record is annotated to show that rather than the ‘single man’ he posed
as at the time of the wedding, it was ‘found afterwards that he had another
wife living’ – so the marriage was bigamous.
They appear to have had one son, who was baptised as Robert,
son of Mary Wales, on 28 April 1752 and was buried there aged just a few
months on 18 July 1752. It is therefore likely that Thomas was the father of Mary’s
son Robert, and that she was pregnant at the time of their bigamous marriage.
It seems that Mary Turner and Thomas Stewart stayed
together regardless, as her burial record at St Mary, Redgrave with Botesdale,
Suffolk, of 27 March 1790 gives her name as ‘Mary Turner Wales, wife of Thomas
Stewart’ on the transcript at FamilySearch. She was 84 years old
(b1706).
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