Events
Date of Birth: unknown.
Place of Birth: unknown.
Date of Death: unknown.
Place of Death: unknown.
Relationships
Father: uncertain.
Mother: uncertain
See the Commentary section.
Spouse: John Stanley. Married 30 April 1710 in Atherstone-on-Stour, Warwickshire.
This relationship is recorded in the parish registers.
Spouse: William Ward. Married 11 August 1716 in Atherstone-on-Stour, Warwickshire.
This relationship is recorded in the parish registers.
Children (by John):
William Stanley (born 4 July 1710, baptized 9 July 1710 in Atherstone-on-Stour) married Elizabeth.
Children (by William):
Samuel Ward (baptized 21 July 1717 in Bromsgrove- buried 19 February 1769 in Bromsgrove) married (1) Hannah Insley 4 April 1739 in Bromsgrove; married (2) Sarah.
Evidence
from the Atherstone on Stour registers:
Maria filia Johannis Smith et Aliciae uxoris ejus baptizata fuit 27 Novemb. 1692
Johannes Stanley & Maria Smith juncti fuerunt in Matrimonij vinculis April. 30.o 1710. bannis editis
Gulielmus filius Johannis Standley & Maria uxoris natus erat July 4th die et baptizatus nono die ejusdem mentis 1710
Gulielmus Smith de Quinton et Maria Standly de Preston juncti fuerunt in sacris connubis vinculis Nov. 20.o 1710 bannis editis
Gulielmus Ward de Bromesgrove et Maria Standly connubio Jungebantur August. 11.o die 1716. Banns editis
from the Quinton registers:
Gulielmus filius Richardi Smith et Sara Vxor ejus natus Novemb: 22 renatus Januarij 9.th [1677/8]
Mary the supposed daughter of Richard Smith was baptized May the 29th [1689]
Commentary
Mary’s identity:
Mary was probably the widow of John Standley.
No Stanleys or Standleys appear in the Atherstone register in the period, except for the four entries given in the Evidence section. In the 20 November 1710 marriage, Mary Standley is said to be of Preston (which was very close to Atherstone). Neither her nor John’s baptism appears in Preston, but there is a marriage record for their probable parents, John Standley and Rebecca Ladbrooke, in 1689 in Preston. I can see no other Stanley or Standley families in the area in the period. It seems less likely that there were two Mary Standleys married at Atherstone in the 1710s than that the John Standley who married Mary Smith there died, and his widow remarried William Ward. I cannot find a burial record for John Stanley, but in the record of his son’s apprenticeship to William Ward in 1718, John is described as deceased.
Mary Smith’s parents:
There was a Mary Smith baptized in Atherstone in 1692 and a Mary Smith baptized in Quinton in 1689.
An argument in favour of the Atherstone baptism is that Mary Smith’s abode is not specified in her marriage record, suggesting that she was from the local church.
An argument in favour of the Quinton baptism is that the half-brother of that Mary married a Standley in Atherstone in 1710, the year of Mary Smith’s marriage to John Standley. Double marriages between two pairs of siblings were fairly common.
References
Atherstone on Stour parish registers, Warwickshire County Record Office; Warwick, England; Warwickshire Anglican Registers; Roll: Engl/2/1139; Document Reference DR 240 (digital images on Ancestry.com accessed 17 February 2015)
“Atherstone-on-Stour’ in in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 5, Kington Hundred, ed. L F Salzman( London, 1949)
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol5/pp3-5
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, St John the Baptist parish registers, FHL films 321123-4, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Preston on Stour registers. Digital images on Ancestry.com.
Quinton registers. Digital images on Ancestry.com.