Chris Dale of Croydon, Surrey, says: I am a novice researching my family tree. The surname in question is Crew from the village of Kimpton. I am keen to find which William Crew married Ann Gray on 26 January 1810 in Kimpton. I have three possibilities.

1. Son of John Crew and Sarah Young born 1782.
2. Son of Ephraim Crew and Elizabeth Moss born 1787.
3. Son of William Crew and Susan Bedford born 1775

It is possible that there may be other Williams but I "think" that these are the only candidates.

The way forward is to collect all the information you can about all the possibly relevant Crews in the area, and treat it as a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing. As you say you are a novice and fail to mention any sources, I suspect you may have got to this point by simply following the "primrose path" and using indexes without any checking the source documents.

If you are lucky some of the Williams will still be alive in the 1851 census, which will give their ages and place of birth - and if one is married to Ann this could tell you which one is yours. Failing this the 1841 census should show they, possibly with some of the children still at home. This provides less helpful data, which can still prove valuable. The Kimpton baptismal register should allow you to determine William's occupation and perhaps address - which hopefully tie in with  the occupation given in the censuses. The Kimpton marriage register will tell you whether William Crew and Ann Gray were from the parish, or elsewhere, whether they could write their own names, and who the witnesses were.

You should also look at the families of all three Williams in the Kimpton  registers to find out what you can about them - particularly the burial register - as some of your candidate Williams may have died as infants - so could not be your ancestor.  With luck you may be able to get the occupations of their parents from the militia records.

By the time you have collected this information you may have enough information to decide which William is the one you are interested in, perhaps with clues such as the inheritance of christian names, and possible continuity of social/occupational status through the generations. If this fails you may need to look more closely at adjacent villages, and possibly manorial records, if they have survived.

By the way, the 1850/1 Post Office Directory entry for Kimpton shows David Crew as a baker and shopkeeper, while Edward Crew was a shopkeeper and ran the post office. This at least shows that some of the Crews in the area were not too poor, and could read and write.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.

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