My 6x great-grandmother, Sarah Howard, was born in the second half of 1723, being baptised in the Herefordshire village of Pembridge on 11 October that same year. Her parents were William and Elizabeth Howard.

Sarah had at least two elder siblings: Eleanor (b.1718) and Thomas (b.1720). Lack of further references to Thomas would suggest that he probably died young; he is certainly not mentioned in his father’s will, written in February 1763. Sarah also had two younger sisters, Alice and Anne, who were most likely twins as they were both baptised on 21 July 1726; again, neither of them are mentioned in William Howard’s will, which suggests they too died young (as was often the case with multiple births at the time).

Sarah therefore likely grew up as the younger of two siblings, effectively only having an elder sister, Eleanor. However, their father’s aforementioned will makes a passing reference to an additional family member whose existence may have given me a clue as to the origins of William’s wife (and Sarah’s mother), my 7x great-grandmother Elizabeth.

In his will, written on 9 February 1763 and proven on 3 March 1764 by his son-in-law and executor John Evans (my 6x great-grandfather), William Howard, “being weak in body but perfect in mind and memory”, left his messuage and premisses to his eldest granddaughter Elizabeth Rickets, the daughter of his own daughter Eleanor. Eleanor herself is not mentioned in the will by name, which could suggest she had predeceased her father. On the other hand, Eleanor’s husband John Rickets, as well as his other children by Eleanor (William, John, Thomas, Mary and Ann) are all mentioned in the will as William Howard’s beneficiaries.

Besides Eleanor’s family, her sister Sarah also makes an appearance in the will. She was by then married to John Evans (both are mentioned by name), but, as already stated, there are no further references to Sarah’s other siblings Thomas, Alice and Anne. However, William Howard does mention one Elizabeth Lewis, who received ten pounds and whom he describes as “my daughter-in-law”.

If William Howard’s only son, Thomas, had presumably passed away, then he could not possibly have been Elizabeth Lewis’s husband. Furthermore, her married name would have been Howard, not Lewis (unless of course she married Thomas Howard, became a widow and remarried while still being considered William’s daughter-in-law, but there are no records to suggest this was the case). So how is Elizabeth Lewis related to William? This is explained if we consider one of the meanings of the term “daughter-in-law”, which at the time was frequently used to define what we would today call a stepdaughter (in contemporary records, daughters-in-law are often referred to as simply daughters, or more frequently, “X, the wife of my son Y”).

It is highly probable, therefore, that Elizabeth Lewis was actually the daughter of William’s wife Elizabeth – whose name his stepdaughter obviously bore. As I knew that William Howard had married Elizabeth Norgrove, as she was then, in Pembridge in 1717, surely his stepdaughter’s maiden name had to be Norgrove. And sure enough, I was able to find the marriage between a John Lewis and Elizabeth Norgrove, dated 31 December 1734 in Pembridge.

My attention then turned to William’s wife, Elizabeth Howard (formerly Norgrove). I found a transcript for the couple’s marriage record, registered in Pembridge on 29 June 1717, which interestingly enough listed Elizabeth as a widow. However, looking for a pre-1717 marriage between Elizabeth and a Mr Norgrove (and similar variants, including Norgrave and Horgrove) only drew blanks. There is a marriage between an Elizabeth Russell and a John Norgrove in Elton, Herefordshire – but it dates from 1719, which is obviously too late for “my” Elizabeth.

I then tried a difference approach. If Elizabeth had a daughter before she married William Howard in 1717, could I perhaps locate the girl’s baptism record? I could, and I did: Elizabeth Norgrove, baptised in Pembridge on 4 March 1711 – mother’s name Elizabeth Norgrove, father’s name… blank. Now there’s an unexpected twist! Was little Elizabeth illegitimate?

I now had in my power two somewhat contradictory records: Elizabeth Norgrove declared that she was a widow when she married William Howard in 1717, and yet she seems to have given birth to a girl while being unmarried in 1711. Lack of supporting evidence to suggest that the elder Elizabeth married before that time leads me to believe she was not, in fact, widowed, and that she was perhaps trying to conceal her daughter’s illegitimacy. I do not know how much William would have known about her past – I do not even know whether he lived in Pembridge before his marriage to Elizabeth – so it is conceivable that she chose to conceal her story by inventing a deceased first husband. Having lived in Pembridge for a number of years, however, makes me suspect that Elizabeth would not have been able to hide an illegitimate birth for long, and William Howard surely must have been aware that his wife’s maiden name was, in actual fact, Norgrove.

If we turn our attention to possible baptisms for Elizabeth Norgrove (later Howard), we soon come across the only option which, to my delight, fits the bill beautifully: on 5 October 1684 a Elizabeth Norgrove (daughter of Humphrey and Joanna Norgrove) was baptised in Dilwyn, which is less than five miles away from Pembridge. But genealogy isn’t about making the pieces of the puzzle fitting in. It’s about proof. So, how can I be sure that this is indeed the same Elizabeth who later married William Howard?

The short answer is that I can’t, unless I can find a will or a similar record that will confirm these various family relationships. I half-suspected that John Evans (Sarah’s son and Elizabeth’s grandson) may have been marrying a relation when he married a Mary Lewis in Pembridge in 1773, but alas with a common name like Lewis, proving that potential link would be a mammoth task. The only shred of supporting evidence that I can offer – and this is only potentially – is that one of Humphrey and Joanna Norgrove’s three other daughters was called Eleanor – the same name that Elizabeth later gave to her eldest child by William Howard. This may be an almighty coincidence, but in all other respects so far all the pieces of the jigsaw fit perfectly.

Of course, there are still many mysteries to unravel. William Howard died in 1763 or 1764, but he left behind a widow. So when did Elizabeth die? And what of their children, Thomas, Alice and Anne, who vanished into thin air? Did they die as youngsters, as I suspect they did? And when did William and Elizabeth’s daughter Eleanor Rickets die? I still don’t even know where William came from, and Howard is not a very common surname in Herefordshire – which begs the question: where was William born?

All the same, I am cautiously optimistic that my link to the Norgrove is looking fairly steady, and hopefully one day someone out there will read this article and provide much-needed supporting evidence to support my theory.