A decade ago, my cousin Deena wrote that Sarah Quaife was christened in Bredgar on March 16, 1771. Going through the Kent Family History Society transcript of the Bredgar register today, I find there is no entry for Sarah's birth. Nor is there an entry in Stockbury.
Deena's speciality was pouring over films of the often blackened and faded pages of of parish registers and ferreting out passages that others missed or transcribed incorrectly. This could be one of those passages. Unfortunately we have lost contact and I cannot ask where she found that 1771 date.
The Stockbury registry transcript shows Sarah Quaife marrying John Banner of Stockbury at St James the Baptist, Bredgar, on July 5, 1794. The Witnesses were Thomas Quaife & Thomas Jenner.
At this point I cannot remember where I read that Sarah was John Quaife's daughter, but the dates, the appearance John Quaife's son Thomas and Thomas Jenner as witnesses at her wedding and the fact this wedding was in Bredgar all argue for such an identification.
There was only one Quaife family in the area prior to 1783, when John Quaife and Ann Crowhurst's daughter married William Rose in Stockbury. All of the other Quaife children were subsequently married in either Bredgar or Stockbury. Regardless of when or where she was born, Sarah had to be one of them.
Perusing the marriage records, I found seven Quaife entries in Bredgar or Stockbury between 1783 and 1794. Three of them were for Quaife's who had no christening record. Thomas Jenner must have been a close family friend, for he witnessed at three of the Quaife marriages. Thomas Quaife only witnessed at one wedding, Sarah's.
She bore John Banner two children before being buried in Stockbury on June 23, 1798. One of them was our ancestor Ann Banner.