Person:Elizabeth Pearce (38)

Elizabeth Pearce was baptised on 12th March 1753 at Codicote in Hertfordshire, daughter of Edward and Mary Pearce.

On 10th December 1772, aged 19, she married John Males at Codicote. He was originally from Cottered, a few miles to the north-east, but he appears to have moved to Codicote with his family a few years earlier.

Elizabeth and John had a daughter, Mary, baptised at Codicote in 1774. It is not clear what happened to Elizabeth after that. There was a sixteen year gap until the next child of John and Elizabeth Males was baptised at Codicote (Sarah in 1790) but whether this is the same couple or another couple who happened to share their names is unclear. Similarly there were four children baptised at Codicote between 1800 and 1807 with parents John and Elizabeth Males, but they are presumably a different couple as the youngest of these four children was born when this Elizabeth would have been in her fifties, and a full 34 years after her marriage.

No plausible burial for this Elizabeth has been found. Her husband John was still alive in 1806, as he is named in his mother's will, but that does not specify where he was living nor mention any wife or children for him.

1. ↑ Church of England. Codicote Parish Registers, 1559-1929. (Hertford: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies).

   1753 / March 12. Elizabeth daughter of Edward & Mary Pearce

   This baptism has been linked to the Elizabeth who married John Males on the basis that it is in the same parish in which they married and there is no trace of the Elizabeth baptised in 1753 having died young in Codicote or married anyone else.