Craig Fullerton (candc20 @t hotmail.com) of Melbourne, Australia, writes: I am researching the following couple:  Zachariah and Elizabeth (maiden name unknown) FITCH.  This is what I know about them:

Zachariah is listed in the Hertfordshire Militia Lists for the years 1793-94, 1796-98, and 1801.  He was living in Ware, occupation Butcher.  It appears that he was deceased by 1841 as he is not recorded on the Census with his wife - Elizabeth who was 55 yrs old, a Butcher, living in Baldock St, Mayfield Yard (I think), Ware.  Elizabeth was living with her daughter Elizabeth aged 25, a Milliner.  Another daughter, Sarah Ann married in 1831 and emigrated to Australia in 1853 with her husband Benjamin McKenzie Gouldthorp (not from Herts) after moving around England a bit.  Sarah Ann is my ancestor. 

Elizabeth died in 1848 in Ware (according to a record at britishorigins.com which I have ordered)

Any information you may be able to help me with, or suggested avenues of enquiry would be very much welcomed.

In a curious twist I lived in Hertford 1987-89 and visited friends in Ware often, without knowing the link to these ancestors.  My eldest son was born at QE2 Hospital Welwyn Garden City !

With a name such as Zachariah the family were almost certainly non-conformists, and as such tend to be hard to trace before 1837 - see Where is my ancestor's baptism before 1837?. 

Surprisingly you didn't say whether you have checked the IGI on Familysearch.  I had a quick look and within minutes found that Zachariah and Elizabeth having five children (Isaac, Elizabeth, William, Sarah Ann and Zachariah) born and baptised at the Old Meeting House, Dead Lane, Ware, between 1800 and 1812. It also shows that a Zechariah Fitch married Elizabeth Cordell on 21 November 1799 at Broxbourne. Possibly relevant 18th century references to earlier Zachariah Fitchs appear in Essex and Cambridgeshire, Another few minutes and I found that Ancestry records that a 69 year old widow, Elizabeth Fitch, shopkeeper, was living in Baldock Street in the 1851 census. She was probably Zachariah's widow and I think you will find it was her daughter who died in 1848 - see Right Name, Wrong Body to see the danger of assuming that if the name is "right" you have the right person. 

I suspect that there is more information about the family which can be found online, but you will need to check some of the records on microfilm, possibly at your nearest LDS Family History Centre (address on familysearch). The Old Meeting House records could be particularly helpful - as for some Independent Churches the baptisms were recorded in a "log book" which will record other church activities (such as when people were accepted as members) which are not included in online indexes. This could be vital as every bit of evidence is necessary to try and unscramble non-conformist family trees in the 18th century - and as I know from my own ancestors, this is not always possible.

There are web pages for Broxbourne

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