Samuel Aldous and Margaret Kemp|KP34-LL9,KP3C-MRC
Rather than a history of SAMUEL ALDOUS and his wife MARGARET, this is a brief outline of the steps involved in proving that he is our ancestor.
In the 1851 census of FenStanton, Lincolnshire, England it is recorded that JAMES ALDOUS, a carpenter (and father of ROBERT FREDRICK ALDOUS who came to America and Utah), was born in Laxfield, Suffolk, England, in the year 1777. Our cousin, MELVIN T. ALDOUS, visited the parish of Laxfield and examined the registers there, finding the christening of JAMES, the son of SAMUEL and MARGARET. As further proof of this connection, in 1847 JAMES married a second wife, and on the marriage certificate (received from Somerset House, London) he lists his father as SAMUEL ALDOUS, a carpenter.
Searches were made in the neighboring villages to Laxfield, and more children were found for SAMUEL and MARGARET. Dozens of parishes have been searched for their marriage, but it has not been found.
At this point it was desired to find the birth and parentage of SAMUEL ALDOUS. Several nearby parishes were searched, and a few SAMUEL’s were found that would fit to be the husband of MARGARET. Only one of these could be the correct one, however, and the problem was to prove which one that was. Neither SAMUEL's nor MARGARET's burial appeared at Cratfield or Laxfield, which added to the problem.
Eventually all ALDOUS wills for Suffolk for a wide period were read and abstracted. This was a most tedious undertaking, but paid off by giving us the necessary clues to establish which SAMUEL was the right one. A WILLIAM ALDOUS died in 1827 in Fressingfield and left money to "the children of the late SAMUEL ALDOUS of Ubbeston my late brother," and also mentioned brothers JOHN, JAMES, and ROBERT. The SAMUEL born in Fressingfield with brothers WILLIAM, JOHN, JAMES, and ROBERT, was one of those already on the list for possibly being the one we were looking for, and Ubbeston adjoins the two parishes of Laxfield and Cratfield, where our SAMUEL's children were born.
Time and Industry finish’d their Life
And 64 Years they liv’d Man and Wife
Search was made at Ubbeston, and our problem was solved: the entry found reads, "SAMUEL ALDOUS (carpenter) a married man of Ubbeston, buried 29th Dec. 1819 age 78." The name was right; the occupation was right; the place was right; and the age was right. The regrettable note is that MARGARET's burial still has not been found. From the wording of SAMUEL's burial entry we can quite safely assume that she was still living, unless he had a second wife. Perhaps after his death she moved to another village where one of her children was living, and died there.
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