William Eva (b
1804 Camborne)
Sidwell Eva (b 1806, m Richard Rule 1826
Camborne)
Rose's will (see below) suggests that
three children of Henry and Eva were alive in 1802. This would
be Jenefer, Catherine and Henry.
Email re Sidwell Bennets
parents from Tony Bennett (April 2009)
I had
Christopher Bennett and Margaret Hary as Sidwell's parents,
based on information in the LDS. However, while the LDS is a
wonderful recource, occasionally it is innaccurate, as Tony
points out. It is best to quote his email..As an aside, Tony
has an excellent website, with heaps of Bennett material - http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tbennett54
You've
probably seen the various Christophers around who might have
been the father of Sidwell. The LDS submission has
Christopher and Margaret Harry as her parents. But the
children attributed to them don't all appear to belong to
them. There is only one marriage in the Camborne and
surrounding area of a Christopher Bennetts and a Margaret at
the right time - that's the 1762 marriage you have.
The LDS submission has their children as:
Ann
11 Sep 1763
Christopher 30 Jan 1766
Sidwell 1 Nov 1768 - this is an error as the actual
baptism is 10 Jan 1768
Ann 16 Mar 1771
Elizabeth 25 Sep 1774.
All perfectly plausible - the gaps are ok.
Looking at the Camborne OPC trancsriptions online we can
start unravelling it though.
Ann 11 Sep 1763 -
fine. The register gives her mother's name as
Margaret.
Christopher 30 Jan 1766 - the register doesn't give
the mother's name, but young Christopher is buried aged 5
in 1771 and on that occasion his mother is named. So
he's fine too.
The other three - no mother's name given. There
is no burial recorded for Ann (b 1763) which indicates that
the later Ann (1771) belongs to another couple.
Then I found there are other children of Christopher
and Margaret, baptised away from Camborne. As I
mentioned before, there is only the one possible marriage so
this must be the same couple. The children are:
Elizabeth 4 Apr
1768 Phillack
Francis 26 Oct 1770 Phillack
(unnamed son) 28 Nov 1773 Phillack
Christopher 5 Apr 1777 Crowan.
If these are the children of Christopher
Bennetts and Margaret Harry - and I think they must be -
then the last three attributed to them in Camborne (with the
possible exception of Elizabeth) cannot be. And I
discount Elizabeth as she is too close to the unnamed son in
1773 (besides, she fits somewhere else). (Comment LR: Phillack is 5
miles west of Cambourne and Crowan 3 miles south, so the
geography fits)
This means that Sidwell belongs to
a different Christopher. The question is, which
one? As you say, Sidwell is a very unusual name.
A Sidwell Bennetts is baptised in 1823 to Christopher
Bennetts and Ann Carthew. This Christopher is one of
another very difficult group of contemporary Christophers,
but I think he is the son of Christopher Bennetts and Rose
Michell, who were married in Camborne on 3 May 1767.
He was baptised on 20 July 1777 in Camborne.
Christopher and Rose, his parents, had a number of children,
not all of whom have the mother's name in the baptism
register so we have that problem again. However, the
first child where the mother's name does appear in the
register is Richard on 11 Jun 1769. This is a long
time after their marriage, and Sidwell (10 Jan 1768) fits
into the gap perfectly. And this would explain the
1823 Sidwell who would have been named by Christopher after
his sister.
Returning to "which
Christopher" - I have changed my mind from time to time
about this, but the appearance of Francis, son of
Christopher and Margaret, helps me to conclude that that
Christopher is the one (there is only one) who is the son of
Francis (baptised 26 Dec 1730). But that doesn't help
you very much as you want the Christopher who is Sidwell's
father. This is very difficult! You mentioned on
your webpage that there are a lot of candidates. By
elimination I have worked out that the most likely one from
the Christophers baptised in Camborne is Christopher son of
Richard, baptised 13 Aug 1720. This makes him rather
old to be marrying in 1767! But it isn't impossible
and I've tied off most of the other Christophers. He
is also the only one in Camborne whose father is Richard
(and his eldest son is Richard).
But this is -
obviously! - a bit speculative. I fear that most of
18thC genealogy involves a fair amount of guesswork.
One thing that puzzles me still is that there is a burial of
a Sidwell Bennats, widow, in Camborne on 3 Mar 1759.
Could this be Christopher's mother?? But try as I
might, I can find no marriage to a Sidwell by any male
Bennetts in Cornwall. So that's a mystery. Even
the identity of Richard, father of the 1720 Christopher, is
elusive - if Sidwell isn't his mother, then the most likely
candidate married in 1723, three years after Christopher was
baptised and no other marriage appears in the records.
The more I think about this the more I dislike it! An
older Richard (baptised 1 Jan 1686/87, buried 20 Jan
1734/35) could be our man and may well have married Sidwell
- an unrecorded marriage, or maybe one in a nearby parish
whose marriage records have not survived, eg, Redruth which
is very patchy before 1717.
One final thing, I am
like all Camborne Bennetts descended from Edward, born about
1607. If you look at my Ancestry database you can see
where they connect - well, most of them anyway!
As a conclusion, we can put down Tony's
suggestion of Christopher (b 1720, father Richard) as a 50%
chance. But it is time to call a halt at that point? No.
An email from Ross Williams in 2021 confirms Tony Bennett's
work. Quoting
(Tony Bennet) comes
down on the side of Christopher Bennetts, son of Christopher
and Rose, probably being Sidwell’s parents.
I think I have
proof of that in Rose’s Will .
Rose died in July 1803
and mentions bequests to Sidwell, and to Sidwell and
Henry’s children, in her Will viz.
"First I give to my Son
Richard and to my Daughter Sidwel the Wife of Henry
Eva One Shilling each and also to my three Grand
Children the children of my said Son Richard and to my
three Grandchildren the Children of the said Henry Eva the
sum of Twenty Shillings each..
More stuff from Ross is on Christopher and Rose's Page