That's a very important point, Blackmogs. For any event that took place between 1 January and 24 March before the calendar change, there is scope for confusion in the year, especially if you are looking at transcripts of individual entries in the register. That makes it even more important than usual to check the original registers to see where the entry is in relation to others.
It appears that I might have been wasting everyone's time ... 4 x great-grandmother, Mary Keeton, (daughter of Charles) was baptised on 16th August 1776 in Metheringham, and I had worked up from her. Now I have discovered a burial of an infant Mary Keeton on 3rd April 1777 - but it doesn't give the parents' names. Yet my Mary and another one both got married in Metheringham (yes, I know it doesn't prove anything) but Granny lived until 1858 and gave Metheringham as her birth place in 1851: ref: Mary Garland - Class: HO107; Piece: 2100; Folio: 330; Page: 12 So it looks like I shall be spending the night trawling through Lincolnshire Parish Records (as well as mosquito hunting; I don't think that they're an endangered species yet)
Blimey I wish that still applied, I do have some really good friends who might help me out. .....arryboy
First and foremost, apologies for the silence, due to too much night computering which brought on a migraine. Will I never learn? (probably not). The results of this are that I have a 4 x great-grandmother who said in 1851 that she was born in Metheringham in 1777, but who apparently died at the age of a few months, as did her siblings, Matthew, baptised Jan 5th 1771, buried April 4th; Charles, baptised Jan 10th 1774, buried Sept 13th 1775; Martha, baptised March 13th 1781, buried Feb 9th 1789. The village appears to have been a poor place to live; the burials list was 'an infant' (very frequently), 'a pauper' (also frequent) or 'a farmer' - this is excluding wives and widows. Charles, the father of the afore-mentioned children, died 'a poor man' and was buried on Dec 7th 1787. I did not notice any other Keetons or names which could be confused with Keeton - she is transcribed somewhere as Heaton - so feel that I have to discount the possibility of her being brought to Metheringham for baptism as it was where her mother was born, for example. Do I now start bloodying my head against yet another brick wall?
I said earlier that there were two Mary Keeton marriages in Metheringham: one married a John Uffton in 1790 and my 4 x married William Garland (spelled Garlant on this register) in 1806. Could there be any significance in the fact that one of the witnesses at my ancestors' wedding was a certain John Uffton?
I have just noted your original message. Richard Keeton and Mary Codling are my 6xg grandparents, through their daughter Catherine (chr 1739). Would be keen to connect.