4^th Great Grandfather - FFFFMF¹

Jonathan Couch, my 3^rd great grandmother Salley Couch’s father was born in Hanham, and baptised on 13^th October 1751 at Hanham Abbots church. He was the son of John Jeffris Couch and Mary Stratton.

Jonathan married Betty Rawbone at St John’s Keynsham on 22^th February 1773². Betty’s younger sister, was also my 4^th great grandmother, as the following year she married Samuel Willis.

Jonathan and Betty had four children, 1 who died in infancy and 3 who grew to adulthood and married. John the eldest, I have already covered in a separate article. Next was Ann who was baptised at Hanham on 4^th February 1776³, but who died a year later being buried at Bitton on 4^th May 1777⁴.

Mary was born in about 1778. I have not found a record of her baptism, but her brother, John in his Journal, notes that she was 67 years old when she died in 1845. She married James Paris at Bath on 21^st January 1798⁵.

Sally, my 3^rd great grandmother was the last child born, and she was born after her father died. She was born on 2^nd February 1780 and baptised on 27^th February of the same year⁶.

I had a difficult time confirming Sally’s baptism. From my grandfather’s notes (see Nurse 1937), I originaly had her birth as 2^nd February 1782, but then I found that the man I thought was her father had died in 1779. In her burial record⁷ her age is stated as 63, so then I realised that she was born in 1780, but I still could not find a baptism that corresponded with a 1780 birth.

Finally I decided to ignore Ancestry’s indexing and search the register, and finally found an entry that I believe is Sally’s baptism. The entry (see Figure 3) states that her parents were Jonathan and Betty Bush. While Betty is a common name in the late 18^th century both Sally and Jonathan are quite rare and the combination would be rarer still, especially in the same month as both my grandfather and great aunt claimed she was born, so I think that the parish priest of the time wrote the wrong name.

Jonathan died 9^th August 1779 at the age of 28 (although his son John claims he was 25 years old when he died) and was buried 11^th Aug 1779 at Bitton⁸.

Not unsurprisingly, as a young mother of 3 children, Jonathan’s wife Betty remarried, to William Selman on 18^th Dec 1782⁹. Betty died in 1823 and was buried at St Mary, Bitton on 24^th October 1823¹⁰.

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